


The (Bad) Husband's Handbook

by SnitchesAndTalkers



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: A trope I am naming 'established relationship fake dating', A whole family sort of love story, Eventual Smut, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Life, Slow Burn, falling back in love, family stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2019-12-07 12:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 94,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18235046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnitchesAndTalkers/pseuds/SnitchesAndTalkers
Summary: With their marriage in the kind of critical failure that should come with a couple dozen red lights and maybe a nuclear fallout siren, Patrick can't believe he's about to inherit the family predisposition towards divorce. Surely this is the kind of thing that skips a generation?Pete has ten chances to save their relationship. Can he turn it around?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no one to thank (and, simultaneously _blame_ ) for this but the_chaotic_panda who, unwisely, began talking about fics filled with established relationships and tired marriages and then permitted me to grab that with both hands and produce this. 
> 
> Now I am completely buried alive in this story and I'm not sure how I'm going to escape. So, I figured, why not drag along whoever wants to take the ride through married life, children and learning how to make one another happy again?

The word divorce does not exist in the vocabulary of Patrick Martin Stump-Wentz. If he were to analyze it (which he does not) he would probably draw this conclusion: He is second generation. His parents are natives of Divorce and, like the children of so many natives of this place no one wants to visit — the place talked about in hushed tones around small ears — Patrick does not want to examine his lineage particularly closely.

Divorce, put simply, is not a heritage to be proud of.

So, Patrick pretends he doesn’t speak the language he heard shouted in the living room late at night. He fakes like the grudge matches pitched during family barbecues, vacations and Christmases have nothing to do with him. He’s not a native of Divorce, you see. He was just an unwilling tourist once. It’s his parent’s homeland. Not his.

Besides, Divorce isn’t the sort of place people visit on a whim. There’s planning involved for the trip. Baggage collected in the form of sad-eyed children, couple’s therapy and drawn-out, acrimonious arguments about how to split the record collection. Willie Nelson said it best when he said ‘who gets the family vinyl?’ or, like, something like that. There’s every possibility that’s a misquote.

If the opening scenes of Hallmark movies have taught Patrick anything at all – and seriously, he hopes he’s picked up very few life lessons from daytime TV – it’s that Divorce takes down marriages like a homing missile. They end in a blaze of glory, they go down like the Titanic, metaphorical guts torn out down the seams and spilling out into an ocean of apathetic dislike, tossing kids and hearts into the water when there aren’t enough emotional life rafts to go around. It’s dramatic, is what he’s saying, it’s two people colliding; the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

It doesn’t sneak up in the produce aisle of the Whole Foods in Northbrook at 9:37am on a Wednesday morning like some kind of marital sniper hiding amongst the organic zucchini. Which, coincidentally, is where Patrick finds himself at this particular moment, considering the relative merits of courgetti versus squoodles. Grocery stores, it seems, are not happy unless they’re using a clever portmanteau to pretend there’s no difference at all between delicious carbohydrates and tasteless misery vegetables.

“Orange or green?” he asks, holding up each pack in turn. Two pairs of eyes – one deep, serious amber, the other bright, slightly squinted sea-green – blink back at him solemnly.

“Yuck,” says Harper, owner of the amber eyes and verbal skills that she uses, frequently, to demonstrate her dislike of vegetables generally and Patrick’s cooking specifically. “ _Hate_ veggies.”

Avery, blue-eyed and still constrained vocally on account of being only nine months old, says “Blegh,” and then she spits up her oatmeal all over Patrick’s shirt. Which seems unanimous.

“Cool,” says Patrick, swiping a baby wipe out of the pocket on the ass of her papoose and conducting a clean-up job British Petroleum could learn a lot from. “Squoodles it is.”

He snaps a picture of grocery cart, selects a filter, sends it flying through the ether via the medium of Instagram. An older lady with a basket brimmed with premium cat food stares at him; only lunatics take photographs of shopping carts.

Not that it matters, but Patrick has this blog. A parenting blog that he named Dad on Arrival. This is clever because it contains twelve letters which means Patrick can run through the pride flag colors twice in the lettering. Plus, you know, _Dad on Arrival_. It’s clever. He likes it.

It is, to all intents and purposes, a successful blog. It generates him an income, has provided his family with free vacations, free car seats and, memorably, a selection of free sex toys because goddammit, Love Honey know their audience and it certainly isn’t young couples in the first flush of lust.

The blog began when Pete was ‘just’ a journalist – a good one, a talented one – and Patrick was ‘just’ a stay at home dad, finding his feet with their eldest daughter, Caitlyn. Pete snapped a picture on the ludicrously expensive camera he ‘liberated’ from work, black and white, Patrick smiling open-mouthed and shining, his cap tilted low and his guitar in his lap, Caitlyn, six months old and beautiful with chubby fists and marshmallow dimples on her knees, reaching out to brush the strings. Pete ran it as the cover image alongside a fluff piece about same gender parents in Chicago and the Internet exploded.

Patrick remembers the conversation over a bottle of wine, Pete’s eyes amber in the glow of the shitty three-bar electric heater in their run-down apartment in Roscoe Village. He started the blog the next day, nervous, running each entry by Pete on the couch over cartons of takeout from the Korean place across the street.

“You need to dream big,” Pete told him with concentrated earnestness. “You need to find your niche and celebrate it.”

So, he dreamt as big as he could between naps and feeds and pre-school and second children (then third, then fourth). Now Patrick has 120,000 page views a month and is, apparently, the kind of man who takes photographs of his groceries. He hands a pack of organic, yogurt-coated raisins to Harper and prays that the Gods of Holistic Parenting don’t smite him.

***

Patrick has given up on dreaming.

He remembers when he used to do it; when he dreamt in songs about growing up and they became songs about falling in love and they became songs about soulmates but, at some point, the needle lifted from the record of his life and now there’s nothing but the crackle of static. This might be because it’s been at least ten years since Patrick heard the words “sleep well” as anything more than a vague threat. It’s hard to dream when your body defies every critical study on sleep cycles and drops straight from ‘horizontal’ into ‘stupor’.

So, it’s not like he can claim Pete is interrupting anything when he shakes him abruptly by the ankle and hisses, “Patrick? Patrick, wake up.”

“Mm?” says Patrick, because this is the sort of thing people say when they’re woken from the kind of slumber second only to a medical coma. “’S’a’matter? ’S’it Avery?”

No one would describe Patrick as verbose when he staggers back into consciousness, least of all Patrick himself. He remembers that drooling in his sleep is one of his top ten pastimes after eating cold leftovers straight from the fridge and wipes at his chin. He hopes he wasn’t snoring.

“You were asleep,” says Pete and then he adds helpfully, “on the couch.”

Patrick avoids barking ‘no fucking shit, Sherlock’. This, he decides, is a testament to his character.

“Was I? I just — I was just watching…” he points vaguely in the direction of the TV. The screen has dimmed, ‘are you still watching You?’ asks Netflix, helpfully, and Patrick supposes that yes, in a roundabout way, he is. The dark screen gives a wonderful mirror view of him, an empty pint of ice cream balanced between his crotch and the accusatory mound of his stomach under his cardigan. It makes him look like the reflection in a funhouse mirror next to Pete, trim and fit and beautiful in his work suit. “Never mind.”

He sucks in his stomach and wonders if it’s possible for someone to carry baby weight when they’ve never actually been pregnant. It must be a thing? The calories ooze in via the oxytocin that comes — everyone knows — from sniffing the ripe strawberry sweetness of a newborn’s fuzzy warm crown. That explains the way his jeans stopped fitting right around the time they brought Harper home from the hospital. He prefers this explanation to ‘donuts for breakfast’. He gives up sucking in his paunch when it starts to make his lungs hurt.

“Just watching,” Pete repeats. He looks around the living room and, okay, yes, Patrick is the first to admit that there are crumbs under the coffee table and toys out of the basket and Penny’s dog bed is kicking off the stench of rain-damp pomeranian. “Did you think about just vacuuming?”

 _I thought about it_ , thinks Patrick, cattily, _and then I thought about sleeping and did that instead_. “The kids,” he explains, vaguely. It means the kids, the mealtimes, the school run, the daycare, the laundry, the homework, the extracurriculars, the dentist appointments. You know, _the kids_. “I can fix it tomorrow when Harper’s at daycare.”

***

“I _hate_ daycare,” Harper tells him. She tells him it fiercely and passionately and, he’s certain, there’s a surefire career in politics stretching ahead of her. For now, he bops her nose and grabs a bag of fun-size apples. Fun-size, he supposes, because they require half the eating time of a regular apple which shaves a good two minutes off the time before the eater can begin looking for candy.

You may assume that Patrick means his kids. There is a _family-_ size bag of almond Snickers hidden on the top shelf of the pantry that proves he does not.

“You do not. You _love_ daycare. Daycare is like Disneyland.” Harper is young enough not to be able to argue this point as she, unlike her older siblings, has never actually been to Disneyland. Or indeed on any family vacation as her other father no longer believes in wasting his vacation days on his family when he could spend them on ‘team-building’ trips to Vegas. Patrick swears he is not bitter. “Only better, because you get to take fun-size apples for snack time. Isn’t that _awesome?”_

“No. You’re dumb.”

Well, like, she’s not wrong. There’s nothing fun about apples, regardless of their size or the presence of anthropomorphized fruit on packaging.

Once upon a college-dating, Pete used to call Patrick fun-size. When he’d pretend he had to stoop to press kisses to his forehead, when he’d strain up on his tiptoes to use Patrick as an armrest. Faking like the two inches between them granted him, all towering five-feet-and-six-inches of him, the status of anything other than slightly below average on a very loose scale. Now, it’s been a long time since Pete called him anything at all aside from _‘Patrick’_ with that particular, vicious eye-roll inflection.

(You know the one, the stress equal on each syllable: ‘Not right now, _Patrick’_ ; ‘Can’t this wait, _Patrick’_ ; ‘Uh, I don’t know, _Patrick_ , what do you think of the tensions in Syria’. Like that. He shakes out of it, tipping his head from side to side like he can dislodge it, a broken Etch-a-Sketch that won’t quite clear.)

“Don’t call daddy dumb, sweetie,” he says vaguely, checking expiration dates in lieu of actively parenting. Good parents, he decides, do not feed their offspring out of date okra and not poisoning his progeny is _way_ more important than actively scolding them. “That’s not—”

His phone begins to vibrate in his pocket, Life On Mars projected around the aisle where the acoustics are awesome but the other weekday morning shoppers don’t seem to appreciate it.

INCOMING CALL PETE.

***

There is a dust bunny staring directly into Patrick’s eyes from beneath the couch and it looks unimpressed. In fact, there’s the ensemble cast of Watership Down clustered under there, reproducing like their namesakes and, honestly, at this point, Patrick is beginning to feel guilty about sending them to meet El-ahrairah.

Pete doesn’t reply but he does drink aggressively from the bottle of IPA he’s extracted from the fridge. For the sake of marital harmony, Patrick says, “Good day at work?”

Pete grunts and launches into a lengthy monologue about office politics that Patrick doesn’t understand because Pete rarely mentions the same name twice. Aside from Mikey. When he’s done explaining something incomprehensible about circulation numbers and competition with online content — a competition Pete is, apparently, winning hands down — Pete offers an afterthought, “And you?”

“Oh, it was fine, you know? Joe came over, he brought—”

“ _Joe_ ,” Pete says and it rhymes with ‘asshole’ and he collapses on the couch opposite. Patrick wishes that he wouldn’t make it quite so clear that he hates the only adult Patrick really interacts with outside of the checkout staff at Whole Foods and the members of the Westbrook Elementary School PTA. “Always hanging out with _Joe_ , aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” says Patrick. If he has developed a tiny crush on Joe — handsome, funny, a dab hand with diapers — well, he’s admitting nothing out loud. “Joe. And his kids. And two of our kids. Is that a problem?”

Pete smiles. At least, Pete’s teeth appear, white and savage. He spits, “Don’t you think you’re making it painfully obvious?”

“Making what obvious?” Patrick asks. His stomach has skipped over butterflies and is instead providing sanctuary for a whole flock of vultures, tearing into the soft, red depths of him.

Pete’s laugh is brittle, “Oh, I think you know.”

***

Patrick thumbs over the green button, “Hi, hon. I’m just at Whole Foods, can I grab you—"

“Hey.” There’s no misnomer, no honey or sweetheart, just ‘hey’. Patrick isn’t letting this get to him today. “So, we have a problem.”

“We do?” Patrick asks cautiously.

The thing about Pete is, when he says ‘we’ he usually means ‘Patrick’. _We_ are in the middle of sleep training. _We_ are looking into middle schools. _We’ve_ done a lot of research and _we_ really think Montessori is the way forward. When pushed in the car on the way home, Pete irritably admitted that he thought Montessori _might_ be a brand of car seat. So, when Pete says ‘we have a problem’ he means, presumably, that _Patrick_ has a problem. He wonders if Penny got sick on the rug and Pete stepped in it; he’s got 99 problems, please don’t let the bitch be one.

“The fucking washing machine is busted – again.”

Okay, so it’s a step up from dog puke but a step down from being part of a reasonable, cooperative partnership.

“It’s not busted,” Patrick objects, because it’s not, Pete just has no idea how to operate a single appliance in the home he keeps stuffing full of appliances he doesn’t want to learn how to operate. “I keep telling you, you can’t force the AddWash door when it’s over, like, a hundred and twenty degrees or something. If you read the instructions—”

“Well, if you remembered to put my favorite shirt into the machine _like I asked you to do_ …”

Patrick suspects that Pete wouldn’t know his favorite shirt if it stood up in the closet and offered to suck his dick. It’s a moot point that pretty much every shirt Patrick owns is stained with things he’d rather not think about. However, Patrick _does_ know Pete’s preference in shirts, and could probably rank a greatest hits list from one to ten. This means he knows that Pete’s favorite shirt is black and is currently rotating in a washing machine of hot water with 90% of Avery’s organic, expensive diapers.

“Wait, you just tossed your shirt in there?”

“Isn’t that basically why you made me buy that piece of shit in the first place? So we could toss things straight in there?”

The fact that Patrick did not, in fact, make Pete buy that piece of shit in the first place is not the hill he’s choosing to die on. He has another, far more pressing hill on which he intends to meet his maker.

“Pete, the machine is filled with diapers! And Caitlyn’s gi! Are you _kidding_ me right now?”

“So?” Pete has that aggressive edge to his voice, the one that says Patrick’s making him feel like an idiot, that he’s looking for a fight. “And why are you putting diapers in the washing machine? I know your fucking homemade, organic, knit your own yogurt blog buddies have some pretty dumb ideas but shitty diapers go in the goddamn trash. Wait, is _that_ why it’s broken? Because you stuffed it full of Huggies?”

“She wears _reusable_ diapers, you _know_ this! And they are – _were_ – white. Only now they’re gonna be gray, along with Caitlyn’s gi. For Christ’s sake, I don’t have time for this.”

“What else do you have to do, exactly?” Pete asks and, if they were in the same room Patrick would cheerfully strangle him. “God, does it matter if her dance costume isn’t perfect?”

Caitlyn does not dance. She hasn’t danced since she was a toddler and she bit the coach. Patrick does not have the mental resilience to deal with that conversation right now.

“Don’t start with me, okay. Just — not right now.”

That he needs to make a stop off at the sporting goods store to buy a new gi with a baby and nap-deprived toddler in tow goes unsaid. Pete has never dealt with a hungry baby and ornery toddler so bringing it up is entirely moot. On the end of the line Pete’s sigh crackles, staticky and irritated.

Then Pete says eight words. They are not particularly important words, they hold no special weight and they’re not the worst he’s ever said by a considerable margin. But he says them and, somehow, in Whole Foods in Northbrook at 9:37am on a Wednesday morning, they become significant.

“You’re gonna have to call the repair guy.”

***

The thing about wedding bands is that they sit on the finger, snugly, left hand, tucked between the pinky and the middle. They’re — biologically speaking — in a different planetary orbit to the heart, the lungs and the fun stuff that goes along with it. So, then, why does Patrick’s feel as though it’s choking him? He tugs at it gently, pulls it tight against his knuckle and breathes out slowly.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Oh, am I? Whatever you say, sweetie.”

And Patrick? He thinks about arguing, thinks about pointing out that Pete is the one with a terminal  case of Mikey mentionitis. He wants to say that he hasn’t had a solid night’s sleep since Avery was born nine months ago and how he’s willing to trade the functional use of his penis — which is redundant anyway as they haven’t had sex in _months_ — for one, uninterrupted eight-hour stretch of blissful unconsciousness. He would like to make it clear that he and the kids are here waiting, every night, for Pete to arrive home on time and tuck them in while Pete works late and sinks beers with his buddies.

Also, Pete last referred to him as ‘sweetie’ — unironically — at least forty pounds ago.

Instead, Patrick shrugs and watches Pete’s throat contract as he takes down another measure of the contents of his one green bottle. Then he rises to his feet, dusts off the crumbs and mutters, “Yeah, whatever. I’m going to bed. G’night.”

He doesn’t say ‘love you’, not because he doesn’t, but because he’s waiting for Pete to say it first.

Pete grunts. He shoves one hand down the front of his pants — under the zipper, over the shorts — grabs the remote with the other and and hits ‘no’.

Patrick goes to bed, alone.

***

Patrick opens his mouth and then finds he has nothing at all to say. He takes a deep breath and tries again, buying time with filler.

“I have to… what?”

“Call. The. Repair. Guy,” Pete says, enunciating each word like Patrick is hard of hearing rather than out of patience. “Could you do it, you know, _quickly?_ I need that shirt for work.”

“Pete,” he says softly, because he’s the kind of asshole who wants to hand his husband an out, even in the face of obscene levels of marital misconsideration. “Do you think maybe you could call the repair guy yourself? Since _you’re_ at home and _I’m_ in Whole Foods?”

“Babe, I don’t have time to call the repair guy. That’s your job.”

Patrick’s patience frays, gives, snaps, his temper crashing to the floor to join the milk Harper tips onto the tiles. It oozes out like a bloodstain, like the aisle is a murder scene which, he supposes it sort of is, the death of his marriage outlined in chalk around the puddle of one-percent splashing over his shoes.

He says, quietly, “My _job?_ You think that’s my _job?”_

See, it’s not about the shirt, not really. It’s not about the diapers or the gi or the fact that Pete has never taken Noah to a single ballet lesson so that Patrick doesn’t have to schlep four kids from one side of town to another in an MPV that smells of sour milk and cheeto dust. Pete’s car smells of regular valets and clean leather. But it’s not about that either. It’s like that bit in 500 Days of Summer where Summer breaks up with Tom only Patrick can’t figure out if he’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Zooey Deschanel. He bites his lip and stares at the milk.

“Patrick?” says Pete, annoyed. “Are you listening to me?”

Patrick came in here for groceries. He wanted to buy milk and vegetables and complain online about supermarkets that play bad Whitesnake covers to apathetic suburban shoppers on weekday mornings. No one warned him about the possibility of ending his twelve-year, it’s-totally-okay-seriously-it’s-fine marriage in the middle of fucking _Whole Foods_ to a soundtrack of piped eighties soft rock. Someone who is not David Coverdale is declaring ‘here I go again on my own’ so at least it’s sort of fitting.

“I want you to pack a bag and get out of my house,” Patrick says softly. He cannot begin to explain how _done_ with everything he currently is, how this was manageable until suddenly it is so very _not_. How every Billboard 100 love song is entirely incorrect and love is not forever, not selfless and altruistic but agonizingly selfish. “Go to your mom’s, go to a hotel, just… go. Before I get back. I can’t do this anymore.”

There is no reply from the end of the line for a long moment. Patrick can hear his breath in the speaker like he can hear his heartbeat in his ears, taste it vibrating against the tip of his tongue. Pete says, “I — What?”

Remember how Patrick believed he was second generation Divorcé? Well, it turns out that he’s been lying to himself all along. Divorce was built into his DNA after all, twisted up and caught in a helix like an extra chromosome. It’s like he’s spent his adult life convincing himself he can’t speak Russian, then he arrives in Vnukovo, opens his mouth at passport control and says ‘Мне нечего декларировать’. The words don’t feel foreign, he knows them all, his heart shaped around the grammar and syntax as he touches a hand to Avery’s warm, soft head.

“I want a divorce.”

Just like that.

He hits the end call button and he grabs Harper out of the shopping cart and he leaves it there, half-full and it’s a metaphor for his life if ever there was one; veggies no one likes and a growing puddle of sad, one-percent milk. Avery strains in the papoose and fills her diaper — her white, pristine, _reusable_ diaper — with organic, preservative-free baby shit.

His mouth tastes of ash and bile and the bitterness of the words he’s just articulated, the ones he’s crushed down a thousand times before. They’re sour, these words, the ones he’s mouthed silently in their dark bedroom when Pete is sleeping and Patrick is pacing the floor with one of the living, breathing humans that make up the ‘big family’ Pete said he wanted but doesn’t want to care for. The sad thing is, he means it. The sad thing is, its reached this point.

The sad thing is, Pete doesn’t call him back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My guys! Welcome back! The beautiful artwork below was provided by tumblr user @pissingonyourgrave and I am absolutely in love with their gorgeous, squishy dad Patrick.
> 
> Thank you so much for giving this a shot, I hope you enjoy it.
> 
>  
> 
> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/168268289@N03/33637587798/in/dateposted-public/)  
> 

This whole thing is bound to be a tempest in a teacup; a blip; a minor hiccup; a bump on the otherwise well-surfaced road of a twelve-year marriage in which Patrick has, so far, sensibly offered his support in the pursuit of Pete’s happiness. Their marriage is, essentially, constitutional. Everyone knows you cannot fuck with the constitution.

This is what Pete thinks as he sits in the driver’s seat of his car, in the dark, watching shadows move behind the drapes of his house. He’s not outside of _his_ house, he’s four doors down, parked at the end of the Hurleys’ driveway, listening to the metallic _plinkplinkplink_ of the engine cooling in the bay.

“He’s never asked for a divorce before,” Pete says out loud, to no one in particular because the car is empty. Completely empty. There are no car seats, no stray teddy bears, no organic vegetable puffs ground into the upholstery by shoes approved by paediatric chiropodists as a collective and disliked by Pete’s credit card as a singular. He supposes, technically, he could be talking to the low hum of night-time talk radio but they’re debating the rise in pothole damage claims and not the state of Pete’s marriage.

(He files it away though – the potholes – as a possible filler piece to run in the Tribune in the next couple of days if nothing more interesting shows up. Chicago, this beautifully flawed, breathtakingly captivating metropolis of politics and drug deals and art and gun crime, is bound to throw up something more satisfying. Still, nothing seems to please commuters more than bitching about potholes. It is, after all, the Great Equalizer amongst races, religions and political affiliations.)

He probably could have talked it over with someone in the bar after work where he drank beer and faked like he was interested in the waitress’s tits. But who wants to be _that_ guy? The one who pisses on the parade of colleague camaraderie to talk about his husband pitching a bitch fit over reusable diapers? He already lies, tells them he’s ‘open to suggestions’ when it comes to his sexuality, inferring without saying it that he’s not the only lonely gay in an office where heteronormativity beats beneath the floorboards like a tell-tale heart.

He thinks about calling the talk show, just for something to do. He’s an editor, after all, they’d be thrilled to get his input and then he has an excuse to sit in the car, watching his fingers turn blue as the heaters stop heating. He reaches for his phone.

There’s a sharp knock at his window: He shrieks.

“Everything okay there, buddy?” asks Andy Hurley, chairperson of the local Neighborhood Watch and apparently someone who takes his role very seriously. He’s wearing shorts with flipflops even though the thermometer in Pete’s car says it’s thirty degrees out. “You’ve been sitting here a while.”

Pete nods, smiling and dropping the defensive stance he learnt from watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, “Oh, sure. Just… waiting.”

“Uhuh,” Andy pauses and looks back towards his own house where his wife and son are no doubt wondering why their neighbour is parked at the end of their driveway. “Is there a reason you can’t wait on your own driveway?”

“I’m not on your driveway,” Pete points out because technically, he’s not.

Andy doesn’t blink. It’s very unnerving. “Do you want to move it along?” Although it’s phrased as a question, Pete gets the feeling it’s very much an instruction. “We’re expecting guests.”

“At nine on a Tuesday?” Pete says doubtfully: Andy isn’t expecting guests, he just wants Pete to stop hanging around at the end of his driveway. Pete knows this. Pete knows that Andy knows that he knows this. “A little late, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I mean, most people are usually home by now, right? Putting their kids to bed, watching TV with their spouse?”

_Spouse_. Is there judgement caught in a noun? Unspoken acknowledgement that Pete is different to the other dads on the block because, in his house, there are two of them? Although he can’t technically issue ‘take my wife’ jokes, he’s always willing to give it the old college try.

“I dunno, man,” he tries gamely, the way he does with the guys from the office, “she’s in a bitch of a mood tonight – must be that time of the month, am I right? You know how it goes.”

Andy doesn’t laugh. Instead, he pats the edge of the window frame, his fingers blue-pale with cold, his breath fogging. “Go home, Pete. It’s late, Patrick’s probably wondering where you are.”

_He’s probably not_ , Pete thinks childishly, _he probably hopes I’ve driven the car off of a bridge_. Andy keeps staring at him.

He always assumed he liked Andy, sharing camaraderie over barbecue tongs at neighborhood cookouts. Manly men in their polo shirts and chino shorts, kings of all laid out before them in the shape of the women — and Patrick — corralling the kids into games of touch football. Now, he’s not so sure. He shifts the car into drive, Andy steps back politely and, without another word, he rolls forward and towards the house. Patrick’s minivan squats on the driveway, sad and unwashed. Pete’s Audi is sleek, clean. Is it really beyond Patrick to toss a bucket of water over his car once in a while?

Pete gathers his laptop case, his phone and his keys, he takes his coat from passenger seat and runs his fingers through his hair. Then, he crosses the front lawn, up the steps to the porch and considers his reflection in the window by the front door.

“He doesn’t want a divorce,” he says, under his breath, juggling his keys from his pocket.

When he says it out loud it sounds ludicrous that he believed it at all. Patrick is allergic to the word, he itches uncomfortably on the couch if someone says it on TV. There is, he’s sure, not a single divorce lawyer in the Chicagoland area who has cited ‘gray diapers’ in the petition before a judge. This is something that can be solved with a shoulder rub and the well-timed offer of a post-shower blowjob. By this time tomorrow, Patrick will remember that it’s super unlikely he’s going to do any better than Pete.

Not without a gym membership.

Pete opens the door and hopes the gum he chewed on the drive home will be enough to hide the microbrew he drank at the bar. “Honey,” he calls out, full of cheery bonhomie and with his face arranged into his best fuck-me smile. “I’m home.”

There’s a bag in the hallway. His overnighter, the one he takes on business trips out of the city. It’s full. It is very hard to fully compute the ramifications of this with his hands full but it would seem that Patrick may not be immediately receptive to the suggestion of mutual oral sex.

From the floor, pulling the zipper home, Patrick looks up. He looks pale and so very, very tired.

“No,” he says quietly. “You’re not.”

***

Pete has a black Samsonite overnight bag that he takes with him on business trips out of the city. He takes a lot of them; Patrick’s never really counted them up but like, _yeah_ , it’s a lot.

There’s a pocket in the bag, hidden away inside and no doubt designed to stow passports and tickets. Pete keeps a three pack of Trojans in there alongside a couple of travel sachets of lube. Patrick knows this because he found them six months ago, searching for Pete’s missing driving licence. The expiration date never changes and the seal is never broken on the pack but they stay there, reminding him, rendering it perfectly clear that, at some point, Pete stood in CVS and thought about fucking someone else with enough clarity that he wanted to be prepared, like an adulterous fucking Boy Scout.

The past six months have been a terrifying, white-knuckle drop every time Patrick checked the pocket.

Today he realizes the depths to which their marriage has sunk. Just like the Titanic he needs a deep-sea exploration vehicle and a James Cameron movie to attempt a resurrection. Patrick pours a glass of wine and puts a record on the turntable, the room is filled with Bowie’s voice just like Pete’s overnight bag is filled with shirts, underwear, his phone charger and condoms he’ll use someday on someone who isn’t his husband.

It is with cinematic timing that Pete’s key slides home as Patrick zips the bag closed. He doesn’t look at Patrick as he comes inside, kicks off his shoes and abandons them in the center of the hallway alongside his laptop bag, drops his coat over the stairs instead of hanging it in the closet, tosses his keys across the kitchen table where he will claim in the morning that woodsprites have spirited them from the hook by the front door. Patrick’s pulse gallops in his temples, his throat, a kickdrum against his lungs.

“Honey, I’m home,” Pete declares, like he’s Robert Reed and Patrick is Florence Henderson. God knows, they’re close to having enough children to stage a Brady Bunch resurrection but this is not the time.

“No,” says Patrick. “You’re not.”

Pete looks at him and the look is not a happy one. His mouth opens like he has something to say, syllables and sentences he can spin like card tricks to make everything okay again. Instead, he snaps his mouth closed, changes direction and heads to the kitchen. He opens the fridge, he cracks a beer.

“Should you be drinking that?” Patrick asks. He doesn’t move the shoes or the coat because they both know Pete will need them again imminently. “When you have to drive, I mean.”

“Babe,” says Pete. _Babe_ , like they’re a partnership. _Babe_ , like this is still college and Patrick is still young and stupid and malleable as bubblegum.

_“Babe?”_

“Babe, what’s this about? Come on.” He pats the Pier 1 barstool that Patrick bought when they moved out to Glenview from Roscoe right before Noah was born. “Talk to me, who upset you?”

_You_ , Patrick thinks hysterically because isn’t this the classic definition of deflection? Who _really_ made him mad? It must have been someone on the PTA, the kids, the asshole in the Acura who cut him up in the drive thru line at Starbucks. It is never, could never, be the fault of Pete Wentz.

(Just _Wentz_. Because he didn’t want to hyphenate his name, something to do with his byline and established presence in the journalistic community, and Patrick is realizing, for the first time, how much he resents that.)

He sits down carefully, takes his glass deliberately, and takes a long sip. Then he says, “We need to talk.”

Pete’s eyes shift with the passing headlights of a car outside. He clearly knows but he’s not going to admit it yet. There’s a difference between ‘need’ and ‘want’ and _want_ is the boyfriend who _wants_ to rip your fucking underwear with his teeth because it’ll get his mouth closer, faster to the aching throb of the cock that’s _wanted_ him all day. ‘Need’ is the soon to be ex husband drinking Merlot and shaping his mouth around words he _needs_ to say.

“Is this about the washing machine?” Pete asks, unwilling to let Patrick have this moment even now, as the death march sounds for their marriage with the low hum of the dishwasher. “Because, honestly? I know you overreacted but, like, you don’t need to apologize or anything, just—”

“ _I_ don’t need to apologize?” Patrick repeats. He enunciates each syllable, rolls them around his mouth like white hot marbles and lets them fall onto the countertop between them. “I don’t need to _apologize?_ To _you?”_

Pete nods. “That’s right.” He spreads his hands, magnanimous, granting absolution with a smile. “I forgive you.”

When Patrick laughs, it sounds hysterical. One thing that must be made entirely clear is this: Patrick does not want to end his marriage. Patrick loves his husband with deep and enduring familiarity, he knows the shape of Pete in the bed next to him, the feel of his hands, his voice, his ice-cold feet tucked to the back of Patrick’s calves in the winter. Their puzzle isn’t satisfying, it’s made of frayed edges with pieces missing but the picture is — to Patrick at least — still visible. His voice is rising as they teeter on this broken bone, jagged, scarring edge of their fucked marriage and Pete — he has the opportunity to apply the cast. This is Patrick presenting him with a one-night-only kick at the can to, for once, do the right thing, _say_ the right thing and try to fix their marriage. Pete looks at him and it is painfully clear he doesn’t understand.

“It’s a couple of diapers,” Pete says airily, worrying his thumbnail under the label of his beer bottle. He shreds it away, brushes the pieces onto the floor with the effortless lack of care of a man who knows someone else will clean it up. “Just buy some more, Jesus Christ, does it matter?”

The molten core of Patrick’s fury breaks the surface. “Yes it fucking matters! You don’t _get_ it, do you?”

“What’s to get? So a few diapers aren’t as white as they were — who the fuck cares?”

“ _I_ care, why can’t you just respect that these things are important to me?” Patrick, honestly, doesn’t feel like he’s asking for too much. “I just want to feel like you get it, like you don’t think everything that isn’t _your_ career is _my_ job.”

It’s so hard to put it into words, to explain the way every tiny decision about the kids exhausts him until he has no capacity at all to think about anything else. How their bedtime finds him huddled over the sink in the kitchen, scooping their leftovers into his mouth as he stares at his reflection in the window like he’s looking into the opposite of a magic mirror.

_Mirror, mirror in the glass, who has got the fattest ass?_

This is supposed to be the part where Pete grabs the good husband playbook, where he leafs through frantically to the page about reassurance and split duties and making things equal between the two of them. Patrick does not want him to fail.

Pete stares at him blankly, demonstrating that he doesn’t get it at all. “I — Are you on your period or something?”

That Patrick refrains from upending the beer over Pete’s head is his final love song for the relationship breathing its last on the granite between them. He takes off his wedding ring and places it down between the fruit bowl brimmed with the out-of-season, photo-ready components of tomorrow’s fresh fruit snack options blog post and the green glass of Pete’s IPA. His heart hurts, his pulse pounding down into the roots of his teeth, his tongue tingling as he raises his fingertip and leaves the neat gold band between them.

“You do not get to keep belittling my feelings like this,” he says, and his voice is flat like Lake Michigan and his hands itch as he pulls them back into his lap, his finger bare for the first time in over a decade. “You do not get to keep telling me I’m less than you. Even if you don’t respect me as your husband, I’m the father of our children—”

“Of _one_ of the children,” Pete points out. His ire is rising now, fire in his eyes as he shoves the wedding ring back across the counter towards Patrick.

“Of _all_ of our fucking children,” Patrick roars, because they are _all_ his children, regardless of who masturbated into a cup at the fertility clinic. Penny creeps from under the kitchen table and slinks into the living room. “God, why do you _do_ this? What the hell do you get out of seeing me like this? I’m not a free daycare worker, housekeeper and occasional provider of orgasms—”

“ _Very_ occasional.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick says, furious now but in a quiet way, his cheek aching where he’s gripped it between his molars to prevent him from saying something he’ll regret. “You don’t even _want_ a husband, do you? You want a vacuum cleaner with a blowjob attachment.”

“I mean,” says Pete, asinine, grinning like all of this is hilarious. “Like — technically speaking — I think they already _have_ one of those.”

They fall silent. The dishwasher hums on, oblivious. Patrick wonders if there’s enough water in there to drown himself, to excuse him from the excruciating, drawn-out burbling of blood in the throat of whatever it was they’ve had between them for the past few years. He sincerely doubts at this moment that Pete loves him anymore than he loves the dishwasher. They both provide a service that Pete doesn’t have to think about, that he benefits from but doesn’t appreciate because he’s not currently elbow-deep in soap suds at the sink. Or — you know — something like that.

“I’m telling you that our marriage is over,” Patrick says sadly, and he runs the tip of his finger around the rim of his wedding ring. “Doesn’t that make you feel… I don’t know, _something?_ I feel like you should care.”

Pete, very deliberately, moves his beer bottle to the side. He stands and runs his fingers through his hair and he stretches languidly and then he says, “I’ll tell you what. You can sleep in the spare room tonight, get whatever this is out of your system. Then, in the morning, we’ll say no more about it. How does that sound?”

Patrick doesn’t think about how that sounds at all. This is because Patrick is on his feet, looming into Pete’s personal space as he braces against the countertop he shopped for, picked out and had fitted while Pete went and got wasted with his soccer buddies or did drinks after work or whatever the excuse was at the time. “It sounds like you don’t _get it._ Pete, listen to me: I do not want to be married to you anymore. I don’t know how to make that any clearer, I can’t keep living like this.”

“Living like _what?”_ Pete swings an arm to encompass the room, the house, the kids upstairs. “Sitting on your ass all day watching Netflix and spending _my_ salary? Sounds like a pretty fucking sweet deal to me. Hey, you want to pull a switch? You can go bust your balls every day at the office and I’ll stay here and babysit the damn kids.”

“It’s not _babysitting_ , it’s _parenting_ , asshole,” Patrick says, his voice increasing in volume as his hold on his temper slips away, “and I’d love to see you try! They don’t even _know_ you! Avery barely recognizes you!”

Now Pete is shouting too, “I’m their goddamn _father_ , of course they know me—”

“You contributed your DNA and called it quits, that doesn’t fucking _count.”_

“Yeah well, at least now they have a shot at making something of themselves. Imagine if _you_ were their biological father. Poor fucking Avery, she doesn’t stand a chance!”

The air is sucked from the room. In the vacuum left behind, Patrick stares at Pete and Pete stares at the beer bottle on the counter. He is very red, flushed across his cheekbones as he tears, savage, into his bottom lip with his teeth. Patrick scrambles for something to say. Anything. This is a Pandora’s box he had no real intention of opening. He wanted Pete to apologize, to swear he’d do better and — for once — to _try_. Instead, Pete refuses to look at him and that hurts just as much as the heat-seeking missile of an insult he just hurled into the center of their marriage.

There’s no fight left in Patrick, he is limp with ill-feeling, every scrap of stuffing knocked from him and left scattered across the bespoke kitchen floor. He covers his eyes with his hands and says, quietly, “Get the fuck out of my house, you selfish, spiteful, egocentric prick.”

Beneath his ribs, Patrick’s lungs and heart feel too big, slapping against bone and tissue as he digs his nails into the bridge of his nose. The world is expanding around him at a speed that suggests something has gone horribly wrong with the Hadron Collider. Patrick would like time to stop. Just for a moment, just enough to catch his breath.

For once, Pete doesn’t argue.

Fun fact: in the corner of the den, there is a guitar. It is, on the scale by which these things are recorded, a very nice guitar, liberated from his dad’s extensive collection before Patrick went to college. He restored it, rebuilt it, made it perfect in every possible way, and then he played it constantly. He wrote Caitlyn and Noah lullabies on that guitar, played dumb 80s power ballads to make Pete smile. There was a point in his life where his fingertips buzzed like a broken record unless they were pressed to the strings, like his heart required the hum of the music to keep rhythm.

He hasn’t touched the guitar in three years. Twice, he’s written out an eBay listing. He always pauses before he hits post because he knows, if he sells the guitar or stuffs it in a closet or climbs up into the attic and stores it carefully amongst their suitcases, he will never play guitar again. This is, he thinks, the best analogy for their marriage.

Patrick is not willing to spend however many years stretch out in front of them  in a jail sentence, caught in a spiderweb of apathetic dislike, where he communicates with his husband via the medium of double-edged insults and irritated sighs. He can’t live his life in 20mg doses of fluoxetine. Pete’s Samsonite scrapes against the wall in the hallway, his shoes scuffing on the hardwood. _Don’t look up_ , Patrick thinks desperately, _don’t look up, whatever you do. Don’t watch him leave._

The house falls silent as Pete reaches the front door. Patrick looks up, because he’s stupid, and watches his (soon-to-be-ex-) husband reach for the handle.

“I didn’t want this,” Patrick croaks, his throat stinging and his eyes wetter than he’d like them to be. “Don’t you get that? This isn’t how I wanted it to turn out.”

Pete shrugs. He opens the door, steps through it and slams it, hard, behind him. He doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t look back and, somehow, that hurts more than an insult.

The Audi hums to life on the driveway, the headlights picking out shadows on the ceiling in the hallway as Pete reverses — aggressively, with grand and reckless fury — and then accelerates away down the street. Patrick would like to wake up from this nightmare, or else fall asleep and dream something sweeter. If there’s a convenient hole sited somewhere in the family room downstairs that Pete commandeered and turned into a man cave, then Patrick would like to know about it. And then he’ll climb inside of it and stay there until his chest stops hurting.

He moves from the kitchen to the hallway, his hand brushing over the wall. If he touches it, if he feels it cool and solid under his hand, then everything will be okay. He blinks and his cheeks feels hot and damp and why the fuck didn’t Pete fight? Patrick sobs, an unbidden and inelegant sound that hurts his throat.

From the top of the stairs, something scuffles. He swallows the hot rock lodged in his throat and attempts to sound normal. “Caitlyn? Noah?” No one answers. “Come on, guys, I can see you up there.”

The kids slip out from the shadows. They are so like Pete; big eyes, big mouths, big, dark curls framing their ludicrously photogenic faces. Noah will, like, probably grow into the ears at some point. It’s cool. They stare at him, half guilty, half miserable, mouths turned down like the poster children for parental guilt.

“How much did you hear?” he asks and he is fucking bone weary, so tired of being the one to scoop up the pieces each time Pete fucks them over.

“Like, pretty much all of it,” says Caitlyn. She looks so young, so small in her Captain Marvel pajamas. She hugs her skinny knees and presses her cheek against the banister. “I don’t like it when you guys fight.”

“Is he never coming back?” Noah asks, his dark eyes huge and anxious. “He said you’re — we’re not your kids.”

“He means because they used a surrogate, idiot,” Caitlyn snaps, like she’s a leading expert in the field of fertility procedures and not an eleven-year-old child who received an age appropriate explanation about the various ways gay couples can conjure up a family less than a year ago. “And they fight all the time, you’re just too clueless to realize.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Daddy, she says I’m too clueless to know you and dad are getting divorced!”

“No one is getting divorced!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice and God knows he can be forgiven for the lie but they flinch and his stomach lurches hard to the left. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout.”

It’s 9:30 at night. Patrick doesn’t want to have this conversation right now. What Patrick would like is to fall into his bed and sleep until all of this drifts away into smoke and inconsequential nothingness. He wipes his face with both palms and takes a deep breath.

“Hey, come on.” Patrick climbs the stairs towards them. “Keep it down, you’re going to wake the babies and you know the rule.”

They chorus, together, “You wake ’em, you take ’em.”

“That’s right, come on, back to bed. It’s way too late for this nonsense from the two of you.”

He meets them at the top of the stairs. He wraps his arms around them and breathes in their scent. They lean right back into him, entirely trusting. They fill him up until he’s not quite as hollow as he was before and he pulls back and smiles and it almost feels natural.

“Daddy,” Caitlyn says, her lip wobbling; Patrick’s heart attempts to base jump into his shoes and he wonders; how can he love something so completely when it has the power to crush him entirely, “are you really getting divorced?”

“Sweetie,” he murmurs and he has to be strong and he doesn’t want to, he wants to cry until his throat bleeds and, right now, he hates Pete for doing this to him, “I don’t know what’s going to happen but the important thing is I love you, and your dad, well, he loves you too, and nothing on earth is going to change that, do you understand?”

She nods and Noah scuffs his toe against the rug. “I don’t want you to be sad.”

“I’m not sad.” He absolutely is, but he will rip out his own guts before he says that out loud in front of them. They look unconvinced. “I’m not! Don’t look at me like that, you don’t know when I’m sad.”

“It’s okay to be sad, daddy,” Caitlyn says and she pats his arm gently. He is both an excellent parent for instilling such a well-developed sense of empathy and a terrible one for causing her to use it on him.

“Look,” he says. “Do you both want to come in with me tonight?”

They nod, eager, and tumble into his and Pete’s room — no, just his room. He bids farewell to the idea of sleeping without an ass in his face or a foot in his mouth and decides, in the cosmic balance of things, that he doesn’t care at all.

***

He checks his phone at 11. He checks it again at 12, at 12:15, at 12:17 and 12:23.

Pete doesn’t text him and Patrick supposes he ought to be okay with that. By 1:03 he is furious, and not just about Noah’s toes jabbing him in the chin every time he moves. Noah moves frequently, so this happens every minute or so. He drafts a text and deletes it a dozen different times. He imagines Pete with Mikey-he’s-never-met, using condoms from the overnight bag and wishes he’d removed the lube. He bets Mikey doesn’t eat Ben and Jerry’s by the pint in front of endless reruns of Gilmore Girls. God, Patrick’s a heart attack away from getting a flavor named after him. Tubby hubby: vanilla ice cream swirled with disinterest and sprinkled with chunks of chocolatey loneliness. No wonder his husband can’t stand him.

He falls asleep at some point.

He doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, comments and kudos are always appreciated :D
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr [here!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sn1tchesandtalkers)
> 
> See you next week? Same time, same place, same channel!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are all so awesome, honestly, I appreciate every single person who takes the time to read this. But, can I just say, my heart is breaking for the people who've said this resonates with them, either because they've been in Patrick's position, or the same position as the kids. Shitty relationships are like a nuclear blast; they burn up everything around them and they don't care if the people they hurt are innocent. 
> 
> You'll all be okay in the end, I promise.

Pete is not having a great day.

Actually, Pete is not having a great _week_. He blames Patrick; inwardly, outwardly and loudly to anyone who will take the time to listen. Sadly for Pete, this is mostly his mom whose sympathy quickly gave way to apathy and then hostility in an unfairly short length of time.

It went something like this:

“He kicked you out?” she asked, over cups of hot tea and homemade cookies in the kitchen of his childhood home. She sounded shocked, sympathetic, exactly how a mother is supposed to sound when her child arrives home with a Samsonite at 10 at night. “What on earth happened?”

Pete spent the drive from Glenview to Wilmette figuring this out and the conclusion he drew was this: Joseph Trohman was the kryptonite to his marriage, the Daniel Cleaver to his Mark Darcy, a cuckoo’s egg in his marital nest. “He’s cheating on me with one of his dad friends.”

He said it like Patrick has more than one.

His mom looked gratifyingly horrified: “ _Patrick?_ Is cheating on you? How do you know?”

“Well, I don’t _know_ know, you know?” She raised her eyebrows like she did not. “I have a strong gut instinct.”

“A gut instinct? Didn’t your father and I spend many tens of thousands of dollars on a degree in investigative journalism? This sounds like the opposite of that.”

“English, ma. I majored in English.” He waved his hand then grabbed a cookie and bit into it, spraying crumbs when he spoke. “I’m calling it journalistic intuition. When am I ever wrong?”

She looked doubtful, like she might be compiling a list. She also swept the crumbs back onto the plate pointedly. “Um… So, has he been going out a lot?”

“Not exactly.”

“Leaving you with the kids?”

“No, it’s sort of like—”

“Not coming home at night?”

“What? No. He’s always home.” _Like a loser._ “He’s a hermit.”

“So, when is he finding the time to have an affair?”

Pete paused: it was a good point. He stammered, “Well. He has like, _all_ day while I’m at work,” she looked as though she might be about to point out the absence of the presence of opportunity, given the absence of the presence of babysitters, so he rushed on, “and he has basically all night.”

She raised an eyebrow. It was not an encouraging gesture. “And where are _you?_ At night?”

“Out,” he muttered at his mug. What was this? The Jamaican Inquisition? He was distantly thankful she had neither his aunts, nor his grandmother in support. “With friends. Or working! Sometimes... I’m working.”

Usually, he knew, he wasn’t working.

“I see,” she said, and she made her lips very thin and she snatched away the cookies and she withdrew her hand from the back of his. “Well, you know where the spare sheets are. Goodnight.”

And then, she went to bed. So much for maternal instincts. That was six days ago and she’s barely spoken to him since unless it’s to bark at him about forgetting to put his trash into the recycling or leaving his shoes in the hallway.

A medicine ball hits him in the chest with enough force to knock the maudlin from him. Along with the air in his lungs, which spasm, winded, as he scowls at Gabe. _What the fuck_ , he wants to say, but can’t, because he can’t fucking _breathe_. He raises his middle finger instead.

“Pay attention,” says Gabe. “Or I’ll do it again.”

Gabe is Pete’s favorite friend. Pete has a favorite friend in the same way that he has a favorite way to be kicked in the balls, that is to say Gabe is the best of a very bad set of options, but he’s tenacious and Pete hasn’t been able to shake him off since freshman year of college. Gabe owns a gym (like he’s owned a coffee shop, a bar and, unforgettably, a sex shop) the kind of gym with no real equipment and bare brick walls and monthly membership fees that run into triple figures. He’s being paid to train Pete and, apparently, he takes this role extremely seriously, unlike literally every other thing he’s done in his life.

There’s probably a reason Pete keeps him around. He can’t think of that reason right now.

The ball hits him in the face this time and Gabe repeats, “Pete! _Pay attention.”_

“Fuck you!” Pete wheezes, braced over on his knees. He is unsurprised, but still pissed off, when the ball hits him a third time, this time under the chin. “I swear to God, Gabriel, I will shove that thing up your _ass_ if you don’t knock it off. You know I’m not kidding, I’ve got extensive prior experience in shoving things up asses, just try me.”

There is a growing tension knot the size of Pangea between Pete’s shoulders, at direct odds with his diminishing reserve of patience and goodwill for his fellow man. This is because Pete spent last night on the back seat of his car. Not because of fun, below the belt reasons like in college, but because he went to a bar and got wasted and his mom locked the door at 10:30 and then refused to open it. With his keys in his pocket and the Audi on the driveway — not to mention the neighbors watching him from behind twitching curtains — he had very little in the way of alternative temporary housing options aside from digging out a shelter under the porch and now his spine _hates_ him. He is, evidently, far too old to sleep in a car.

A nagging voice at the back of his head points out that Patrick _never_ locked him out.

“So,” says Gabe, putting the ball back onto the rack and tossing Pete his towel, “would it be fair to say you’re not really in the mood for a round of burpees?”

“I’ll kill you. No one will find the body. I won’t feel remorse.”

“I would pay actual cash money to see you try,” Gabe says. “But for now, _you_ can pay actual cash money to buy me a beer.”

“I like this idea,” says Pete, whose liver protests strongly as he grabs his kit bag. It’s joined swiftly by his stomach, his spine and his throbbing, sleep-sore brain. “I like it a lot.”

They reconvene at the Irish bar they’ve been drinking in since college. It’s familiar in that the decor hasn’t changed in two decades and neither has the clientele. Pete is sure the dust clinging to the ceilings was probably part of the original lease. Gabe raises his beer and clinks it against Pete’s.

“Here’s to heart attacks in your forties because you refuse to work out in your thirties, but also refuse to stop drinking.”

“I’m a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a burgeoning alcohol problem,” says Pete, knocking back half his beer in one long swallow. He elects not to point out the ten mile run Gabe dragged him on two days ago, or the crossfit set they did the day before. “Jesus fucking _Christ_ , what a week.”

“Is there a reason,” Gabe begins, leaning back against the bar and assessing Pete carefully, “that there’s a big old ‘I literally lifted this shirt out of the packaging in the bathroom’ crease across your stomach, chest and arms right now?”

“That would be because I literally lifted this shirt out of the packaging in the bathroom at work this morning,” Pete confirms. “I’m really living the young, single lifestyle. My shirts all stink, no one is sucking my dick and my mom locks me out of the house if I’m not home by curfew.”

His life is a mess, his room is a mess, his car is a mess and his mom refuses to wash his shirts for him unless he places them into the hamper. This became apparent this morning when he discovered them, in a wrinkled, sauce-and-sweat-stained pile at the side of his bed and was forced to take an early morning detour to TJMaxx for a replacement on his way into the office. He’s wistful for Patrick, who sought them out like a shirt-seeking missile and returned them, pressed and smelling of fabric softener, to his side of the closet without complaint.

Gabe doesn’t look sympathetic. “I’m not sympathetic,” he says, Pete feigns surprise. “Honestly, you should just go home, idiot. You’ve been with Patrick for forever—”

“Don’t I know it,” he mutters into his beer.

“You guys have, like kids and stuff. Actual tiny people, even tinier than you.”

“So do you,” Pete snaps. “Don’t judge me, plenty of dads go way longer without seeing their children. Like, forces dads and dads who work away from home. The kids turn out fine.”

Gabe’s lifts his eyebrows as Pete’s stomach drops; this is an unpleasant demonstration of Newton’s third law. “You haven’t seen your kids?”

Pete shakes his head and takes down the rest of his beer. He hasn’t seen the kids because Patrick hasn’t _asked_ him to see the kids. At this point, it feels like a battle in a war that he’s still not sure will turn into a treaty called divorce and he doesn’t want to concede an inch. Honestly, he’s hoping the divorce thing won’t happen. His dad keeps informing him — cheerfully and with alarming frequency — that divorces are _expensive_.

He also keeps asking, in this weirdly ominous tone, if Patrick has a lawyer yet. Pete has resolved to keep Patrick away from his misery-mongering, matrimonial attorney father in law for as long as possible.

“He hasn’t asked!” Pete objects, because Gabe is looking at him like he just announced he enjoys kicking puppies as a hobby. “Isn’t he — Shouldn’t he _ask_ for my help?”

“You want him to _ask_ you to spend time with your children? Huh. Interesting.”

When Gabe phrases it like that, with that judgemental inflection and quirk of an eyebrow, it’s possible to make _anything_ sound half a step away from international terrorism.

Pete says, defensively, “I just think my help should be appreciated, you know? I put a lot into my marriage, I’m the reason we have the house, why he gets to sit on his not-insubstantial ass all day and do nothing constructive. Would it kill him to say thank you once in a while?”

They drink in silence. Pete’s not sure if he should be pissed off that Gabe doesn’t seem more on his side, or concerned that no one, so far, has confirmed he’s absolutely right about this. He signals for a second beer and checks his watch: he’s going to have to get a cab back from the station in Wilmette and he’s going to have to hurry if he doesn’t want to get locked out.

“When I was twelve, I kinda thought being an adult would be pretty awesome. Now I’m there, and somehow, I have the mortgage _and_ the curfew. It’s like I got all of the crappy parts of both sides of the deal — horrendous financial responsibility _and_ no actual freedom. Plus, I haven’t had sex in like — _months_. Many, many months. A depressing number of months.”

“Are you, you know, propositioning me?” Gabe asks, as though he’s in some way opposed to dealing with dick. “Because Will and I are very happy, and like, he might be open to a threesome but probably not without written notice. And _definitely_ not before the kids are asleep.”

Pete expresses his distaste for hearing about Gabe’s handsome, successful, _accommodating_ husband by slamming his head into the bar until his ears ring. “Fuck my life.”

“Look, do you want him back?” asks Gabe.

This gives Pete a moment of pause: _Does_ he want him back? He supposes he wants Patrick back in the way he wants his car back when it goes in for a service. That is, he’s familiar with his car and the loaner is never quite as good as his own, doesn’t have all of the upgrades, the seats are in the wrong position and the radio is always set to a country station.  Plus, it rarely comes with rear parking cameras. He misses his creature comforts, is what he’s trying to say. Setting up the entertainment system on a new model sounds like a lot of work, if he may be permitted to continue making car references. He nods.

“Okay,” Gabe pauses in a way that could be dramatic or could be because he doesn’t know what he’s going to say next, “okay, here’s the thing. You need to make a gesture and it needs to be like — _huge_.”

“Huge,” Pete repeats, nodding, because right now he’ll do anything to sleep in a bed with a pocket sprung mattress and not the rocks-wrapped-in-straw his parents purchased for him in his teens. Gabe nods, but doesn’t say anything else. It’s clear he thinks his work here is done. “Uh... Such as?”

“Oh,” Gabe gestures vaguely at the wall, “I don’t know. I kind of thought you’d have that part covered.”

They both stare down at their drinks like bottles of Goose served by hipsters in matching scruffy beards and man buns — a look Pete refuses to judge as he’s currently sporting both — can be read like Romany tea leaves. The beer stares back morosely. Pete has honestly no idea what he can do to coax Patrick back. He’s already provided the income, the house, the good-looking children (well, three out of four ain’t bad and Avery will _probably_ be fine when she shapeshifts from an amorphous, red-headed blob into an actual human), he’s handsome and he has, not to brag, a pretty good body for a dude his age. Patrick should be counting his blessings, not tossing him out with nothing but a handful of shirts and his gym kit.

“God,” he says, “this fucking sucks _ass.”_

“You would know,” says Gabe goodnaturedly, bringing their shoulders together.

“So would you.”

They have been friends for over two decades now. Their friendship has hit adulthood disgracefully, is old enough to be halfway through a college degree and, in just a few months, it will be legally old enough to drink, vote and hire a car. This means that Gabe knows him better than almost anyone else in the tri-state area. He motions for the bartender and orders shots. “I think we should get wasted.”

“I have a curfew,” Pete sighs. This is the most depressing thing that a man who will turn forty on his next birthday can say out loud in an establishment licenced to serve intoxicating liquor.

Gabe slides the shot into his hand and sing-songs, “Not at _my_ place.”

Pete grins and knocks back the tequila, wincing at the burn. “Well,” he says, already slurring. “Why didn’t you fucking say so? Barkeep? Line ’em up!”

***

Pete met Patrick in the library of Northwestern, a golden-haired kid hunched over music theory textbooks like they actually meant something. That Patrick ignored him — _Him!_ Dirty-glorious, dressed in eyeliner and girls jeans! — only made him more desirable. It took three weeks of staking out his study spots, his band practice, his bleary-eyed shuffle to the cafeteria every morning to collect his university-mandated slices of regulation wholemeal toast and individual pats of pre-wrapped spread.

Twenty-one days, but Patrick broke, huffing gruffly into his hands, “The fuck do you want, asshole? The toast is over there.”

He smelt so impossibly of _boy_ , on his breath, his skin, clinging to the sweaty curls of hair behind his ears and at the nape of his neck. Pete fell in love so easily, so utterly and completely and so breathtakingly _quickly_. He touched the back of Patrick’s arm lightly.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked and it was still semi-cautious. Because Pete had been burnt before. He’d felt a fist or a headbutt from some overzealous, homophobic dudebro more than once. If this went south, he already had a half-baked suggestion about starting a band but Patrick, with his breath fresh with toothpaste and gold as fucking sunshine, huffed a laugh.

“I’m pretending it’s not, but that’s because you’re like… a solid nine. Nine and a half. I kind of don’t want to look like a dumbass, here.”

And Pete? He laughed and said, “That’s pretty cold, coming from a ten. You busy tonight?”

Patrick cut his toast in half, pushed a share onto Pete’s empty plate and sat back, “Sounds like I am now.”

Pete fell. He kept falling and waiting and holding his breath because falling in love like this, this completely, this utterly, was like plunging to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. At some point, he had to suffocate, to be torn apart by the sheer weight of it, he had to drag Patrick down with him. Stars are swallowed by black holes. Pete took gold and turned it to trash with the kind of regularity and casual flair that would amaze most alchemists, even if they didn’t understand it. It turned out, though, that Patrick was some kind wizard himself, able to share his starlight as easily as he shared his toast, his humor, his satin smooth laugh.

Of course, Pete married him. That’s what you do when you catch a butterfly so rare, you choke it up with formaldehyde and you pin it to a corkboard and you hide it away, somewhere only you know. Pete drove in every pin himself, framed Patrick up on the wall and admired him every single day.

Until he stopped. Until the butterfly in the box case was no longer exotic and beautiful and rare and was just a thing on the wall, part of the landscape of Pete’s domesticity, held in place by pins the same shape as the kids they shared. Until Pete stopped admiring, stopped being amazed, stopped caring.

Pete touched the bottom of the ocean and then, quietly, he drowned them both.

***

Patrick wakes at two in the morning to the sound of his phone ringing.

He, in order, slams open his eyes, lunges for his phone, slips and then falls out of bed, the phone skidding away from him and joining the assorted detritus of missing socks and charger cables cluttering the underside of his bed. “Shit,” he hisses, fumbling blindly as the phone vibrates against the hardwood. There are no good reasons for phone calls at two in the morning. Someone is obviously dead and Patrick is mentally cataloging his elderly relatives and trying to weigh up who he’d miss the least. _Please not Gam Gam_. The phone goes silent. Unlike Avery, who begins to wail in her crib. “Shit, shit, _shit!_ Pete, could you—”

He bites that off. Pete isn’t there and, realistically, wouldn’t help even if he was. Instead of doing the thing he’s been doing sporadically for the past week or so and staring contemplatively at the wall whilst imagining their last conversation and replacing all of the things he actually said with things that are far more witty and cutting, he stretches a little farther and grasps the edge of the phone.

“Daddy’s coming,” he assures Avery, struggling to his feet and slipping on his glasses. “Just — Give me a second, sweetie, I think Gam Gam might be dead.”

Avery looks as though this bothers her very little as she pulls herself to her feet against the railings and glares at him, chewing on her fist. The phone flashes with a missed call notification — Pete — Patrick’s blood pressure dips in relief, then rockets once more in fury. Is it possible to get whiplash of the vascular system?

He shoves the phone into the pocket of his pajama pants and turns his attention to Avery. “Alright, well. Shall we get you back to sleep?” She looks at him and babbles a long, intellectual-sounding stream of nonsense. He assumes this means ‘no’. “Not tired, huh? Daddy is tired. Daddy is so, _so_ — Goddammit, Peter.”

The phone is ringing once more and, although he would love to ignore it, to shut it onto silent and, like, toss it out of the window or something, there’s a possibility that something serious has happened. Patrick might be angry, he might be Googling divorce lawyers fifteen times a day, he might be giving himself Erin Brockovich pep talks on the regular but he doesn’t want to be the guy who ignores the phone when his husband’s in the hospital. If nothing else, he’s pretty sure he still has the legal right to switch off the life support machine.

(This is a joke. Sort of. It’s _mostly_ a joke.)

With the phone jammed against his shoulder, he scoops up Avery and barks into the receiver, “What do you _want_ , Pete? It’s two in the morning.” He censors the expletives he wants to add: Little pitchers have big ears.

“Patrick?” says Pete, slurring softly, clearly drunk. “’S’at you?”

“No, it’s your _other_ husband who kicked you out a week ago and is currently dealing with four kids who want to know where the hell you are.”

“Currently?”

“Not _currently_ currently because, as we just discussed, it’s two in the morning. _Generally_. I am _generally_ dealing with the kids who want to know where you are.”

Pete laughs and sounds utterly, blissfully relaxed. There are two or three plump, angry-looking veins in Patrick’s temple that seem on the verge of rupture. Pete says, “You’re cute when you’re mad.”

Patrick wants to point out that, because he _generally_ has four children to take care of, he has spent the past six days allotting himself thirty minute slots in which to cry. His new schedule involves putting the kids to bed, washing the dishes (as this gives him sufficient time to be sure they’ve gone to sleep and won’t overhear him) and then sobbing until his throat hurts through one (1) episode of Modern Family. He grants himself a half hour because, he knows, if he were to indulge himself in the kind of emotional outpouring of which he _wants_ to partake, he probably wouldn’t stop. He suspects Pete wouldn’t care.

“I am neither cute, nor mad,” Patrick informs him and, collapsing onto the bed, he covers Avery’s ears. “I am, in fact, fucking _furious_ with you. Where the _fuck_ have you been? Before you answer, I want to make it very clear that the only acceptable excuse is that you’ve just this second woken up from a coma because that would explain the slurring and the absence. Otherwise I’m going to assume alcohol and apathy.”

What he means is, I assume you’ve been fucking someone else.

There is a very long pause at the end of the line, Pete’s breath huffing beatifically. Patrick has every intention of hanging up and then Pete declares, “I can’t confirm or deny that.”

“Of course.” Patrick collapses back into the pillows then immediately lurches upright and snags Avery by the butt of her sleepsuit to stop her plummeting headfirst over the side of the bed. When Pete doesn’t say anything, he snaps, “What do you want?”

“Well…” Pete trails off and appears to give this deep thought. Patrick’s patience dwindles. “I want to babysit.”

Patrick stares at Avery. She, says, very softly, “Eee _ba,”_ and blows a bubble of spit from her red, shiny mouth.

“I’m sorry, you want to what now?” asks Patrick. There’s anger in his belly, rising up like a hot air balloon. One of those dangerous ones that are about to crash and send a dozen middle-aged Midwestern couples celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary plummeting to their deaths. “It sounded like you said _babysit_ when you actually mean _parenting_. I’m willing to give you an out and pretend you’re still drunk and you just said ‘rabies shit’. You want to rabies shit.”

“That,” Pete says, sounding a lot more sober than he did two minutes ago, “doesn’t make sense. And I think the words you’re looking for are _thank you.”_

They both fall silent. Pete’s holds the kind of self-righteous indignation reserved for the mortally offended. He’s like a Justin Bieber song transposed into a phone call: whiny, self-absorbed, confused about the basic principles of moral obligation. Patrick’s is sort of sweaty and hot, like the room just drew in a breath and now he’s trapped in a vacuum, a deer in the headlights of Pete’s vacuous bullshit.

“I believe the words I’m looking for are _‘go fuck yourself’,_ ” he hisses and Avery shrieks, hysterically amused by daddy’s angry, round, red face looming over her like a pissed off reimagining of Goodnight Moon. _Goodnight Daddy’s last frayed thread of patience_. “You don’t — I don’t need your _help_ , I need another parent for our children, weren’t you listening to me last week?”

“I’m offering to help, aren’t I? Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, at least a _little_ grateful?”

Patrick pauses and takes a very long, very deep breath, designed to slow his heart rate from the immediate threat of cardiac arrest and into ‘just jogged up four flights of stairs’ territory. Instead of saying the many inflammatory things rattling around at the back of his throat, he counts back from ten and, softly, he says, “Are you grateful when _I_ do it?”

This does, at least, pull Pete up short. He sounds bewildered, like a giraffe faced with a tiger when its only seen lions. It knows whatever is happening probably isn’t good, it just has no frame of reference for precisely how bad things are about to get. He stammers a few conversational openers such as ‘I…’ and ‘uh…’ and ‘but…’ and Patrick lets him. He stares himself in the eye in the mirror over the dresser and dares himself not to interrupt, not to hand Pete the linguistic mountaineering gear with which to extract himself from the hole he just keeps making deeper and deeper.

Pete climbs into his verbal submarine, and, with no concern for the stability of their vessel, begins to descend. “But,” he declares, like he’s making a very intelligent point that Patrick clearly hasn’t thought of, “you _wanted_ to do it.”

And Patrick, like this conversation is a game of chess, slides his queen to F7 and says, “Are you saying you _don’t want_ to spend time with your kids?”

“Ooo,” says Avery, appropriately. Then she grabs her ankle and begins casually chewing on her toes through her sleepsuit.

“You’re putting words in my mouth,” Pete objects sullenly. It takes tremendous strength of will not to point out that Pete put them there himself. “That’s not fair.”

Six days.

It’s been six days since Pete aggressively revved his car out of the driveway and just as long since he bothered to pick up his phone and let Patrick know he’s not actually dead in a ditch, upside down with the wheels still spinning. Okay, so Patrick assumes that someone probably would have told him by now, but still. It would’ve been nice to be afforded at least a moment of consideration. It would’ve been nice to know Pete cares.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he admits finally. “Are you asking me for permission to see the kids? Because you know I’d never stop you.”

Pete has no idea when he’s onto a good thing and ruins the potential for a truce immediately.

“You can’t _stop_ me,” he says. “I’m their _biological_ father, I could — I could take them myself. Yeah, it’s my house, my kids, why don’t _you_ sleep in the car and I’ll play Suzy Homemaker?”

There’s… a lot to unpack, right there. Patrick asks, “You’re sleeping in your _car?”_ And then he remembers the first thing Pete said and laughs viciously. “Wait, _your_ kids? You really think so, huh?”

If this were any other situation, and Pete were any other man, Patrick might be offended. Hell, in a completely different situation with an _actual_ father — do not think about Joseph Trohman right now — he might even be worried. Intead, Patrick is amused. He is also faintly antagonistic and waiting for Pete to bite. Which he will, because Pete is nothing if not competitive; in work; in sport; in misery.

Like a circling alligator, he spies the weak ripple in the water and darts forward, all teeth. “You bet your ass. I have a lawyer working on it right now.”

“Is that so,” Patrick makes another lunge for Avery as she once again attempts to base jump from the edge of the bed, “tell me, Peter, how do you intend to assume full time care of the kids when you can’t even get them to school?”

“I can get them to school,” Pete insists sharply. “I have a car, I’m not an idiot.”

“Excellent,” says Patrick. “You can take them tomorrow morning, I’ll see you at eight.”

Pete appears to realize he has walked himself directly into jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. “Wait,” he says quickly. “Wait, no, I — I need, like, notice and — Wait. I have work.”

“Take a personal day, call in sick, I really don’t care.”

“I — I’m supposed to be at the office in, like, _seven hours_ , Patrick.”

“But, Pete,” Patrick’s voice is syrup and sweetness, “how are you gonna take the kids away from me if you can’t even get them to school _one time?”_

The silence is… gratifying. Pete’s internal conflict transcribed in short, panicky breaths on the other end of the line. Patrick fist bumps Avery in victory and waits for the inevitable excuse. Avery grabs his hand and mauls at his fingers.

“Fine,” Pete says.

It seems he’s almost as full of surprises as he is full of bullshit. Patrick chokes briefly.

“You — You will?”

“I will,” Pete confirms grandly.

“Excellent,” Patrick says weakly. He was not expecting this. Avery farts an explosive 21 gun salute into her sad, gray diaper that Patrick has yet to replace. “I have, uh, a thing tomorrow,” he does not, but he’s willing to spend the day sitting in Starbucks if he has to, “So, you can take the big ones to school and then hang out with Harper and Avery until I get home.”

 _“Nnnn-gurrrr!”_ Avery snarls into her wet toes. “Dada!”

“Sure thing,” says Pete and then, like an idiot, he adds, “how hard can it be?”

Patrick laughs. It’s not a pleasant sound. “Oh, _you’ll see_ , superdad. I’m hanging up now.”

“Patrick, wait!” Pete yelps. Patrick pauses but doesn’t say anything else. Neither does Pete.

Patrick studies the pattern on the comforter and bites his lip. Pete is infuriating, unreliable, has been looking for a replacement mom since the second he set foot on the Northwestern campus half of his lifetime ago. Patrick has spent the best part of a week examining the way Pete makes him feel and asking himself, Marie Kondo style, does his husband spark joy? He has been forced to draw the depressing conclusion that he does not. Still, Pete doesn’t say a word.

He sighs. “Goodnight, Pete.”

Then, he hangs up, switches off the phone and tosses it onto the nightstand. In the center of the bed, Avery sits and stares at him seriously.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he tells her. She babbles something that sounds vaguely disapproving. “What do _you_ know? You’re nine months old, you don’t get to judge me.” She looks distinctly judgemental. “Okay, that’s quite enough from you, young lady. Time to go to sleep.”

“Ba!” she declares decisively. “Bababa!”

“You’re not going to sleep, are you?”

“Bleh!”

“I could put you in a cardboard box with a ‘free to loving home’ sign around your neck,” he tells her, “people do it to puppies all the time.”

Avery looks as though she thinks she’d like to see him try. He brushes a hand over her scalp and feels the familiar rush of panicky guilt when he touches her wispy copper hair. The parenting websites assure him it’s totally normal for babies to remain bald at her age. It’s definitely not genetics.

“Avery,” he says, and she looks at him, her head tilted to one side. “I _do_ still love him, you know. Like, I know he’s a di— an idiot. But, we had fun once. I’m just… do you think it’s possible to fall back in love with the _idea_ of someone when that someone has spent five years systematically destroying it?”

She slaps her fat little fists onto the sheets and babbles a string of nonsense. “You’re probably right. Who can figure this out at 2:15? We should get some sleep.”

She crawls towards him and smacks him with a drooly open palm. He grimaces. If Pete were here, he wouldn’t be conducting this conversation with an infant. He wonders if this sort of thing is developmentally inappropriate, if the outpouring of parental woe will somehow offset the Baby Einstein tracks he used to play to her while she slept. She continues to babble in his ear.

“Are you going to sleep or not?”

“Aboo,” she says decisively.

She’s right; sleep is overrated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, comments and kudos are always appreciated :D
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr [here!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sn1tchesandtalkers)
> 
> Next week... How will Pete cope with "babysitting" his kids? It's one school run, right? How bad can it be?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! 
> 
> Okay, so, raise your hands if you believe Pete's "babysitting" can possibly turn out the way he thinks it will? Anyone? Anyone at all...?

Pete had no idea that a hangover could feel this agonizing. His brain is a bottle rocket, his skull the facilitatory chute inside of which the projectile has been jammed. It is only a matter of time before it blows free. He cups his throbbing temples in both hands and groans.

“I think I’m dying.”

It all seemed like an excellent idea last night in the bar, in a club and, messily, the living room of Gabe’s rambling, falling-down, perpetual project Greystone in Logan Square. Now, it seems like the worst idea in the history of horrible ideas with the sunlight burning his retinas through the drapes. He’s almost certain he’s safe to drive from a toxicology point of view, but whether or not he can pull it off without barfing all over the steering wheel and, by extension his _lap_ , remains to be seen. It’s clear he doesn’t handle alcohol in quite the same way he did when he was 21.

“You want a bagel?” asks Will, with all of the aggression of a man woken by a one in the morning rendition of Don’t Stop Believing. He holds out a plate on which sits a solitary burnt bagel with overripe avocado and under-cooked egg. It looks like it was put together with margarine and spite. He can’t believe it’s not botulism.

Pete’s stomach lurches threateningly. There is every possibility last night’s tequila is about to make an exciting comeback.

He swallows, hard. “No thank you.”

The only consolation — and seriously, there is nothing else positive about this morning — is that Gabe looks just as gray and tired and close to blowing chunks as Pete. They huddle over their mugs, old men with no business attempting to recreate their misspent youth, and gulp their coffee like it’s an elixir.

“I am never drinking again,” Gabe declares. Will snorts derisively and bangs a cabinet door closed with — Pete feels — more force and volume than is strictly necessary. It’s clear Gabe is joining him in the doghouse of matrimonial disharmony. “Don’t be mad at me. Pete’s marriage is failing, I was being a good friend.”

“Hey! My marriage isn’t _failing,_ it’s just—”

“By pouring grain alcohol down his throat until he passed out on the couch?” Will sounds unconvinced by Gabe’s methods. Pete agrees with this assessment.

“No,” insists Gabe, “that’s not _all_ I did, I did _other_ things, too. I offered sound and sensible relationship advice _before_ he passed out.”

Pete nods, “I vaguely recall that. That sounds — My brain is telling me that’s probably a thing that happened.”

Will pauses, head cocked, then says, “You took relationship advice? From _him?”_

“To be fair,” Pete interjects, “I don’t remember any of it. I can’t say I actually acted on it.”

“Hey!” Gabe says, clearly more affronted than he has any right to be. “I give excellent relationship advice!”

“Name one bit,” demands Will.

“I _advised_ you to get into a _relationship_ with me, didn’t I?”

Will looks at him, dark eyes impassive. “Name. One. Bit.”

Their wide-eyed baby is balanced on Gabe’s hip, their scruffy-haired toddler clinging to his leg. Matias and Angel respectively. ‘Two for the price of one’, Gabe calls them affectionately. The toddler — Angel — creeps towards Pete and he stiffens in that instinctive way he has around kids who haven’t worked out how to articulate their thoughts or control their bladders yet. She pauses, then smears her toast against his knee.

“Angel,” says Will. “Don’t decorate Uncle Pete with that. That’s _artisan_ butter, if you’re going to cover him in anything, use the cheap stuff.”

Will is looking good in a very Will way, dressed in an outfit that makes him look something like a cross between a middle school English teacher and a pirate. Pete’s asked many times what it is that Will does for a living and, many times, he’s been unable to figure out the explanation. Usually, Will just sighs and says ‘Real estate. It’s sort of — We can just call it real estate’. _Real estate_ clearly pays well, since they’re constantly in the middle of one project or another in this endless house of impossible projects and Gabe, it seems, is free to fuck around avoiding adulthood indefinitely.

It’s not that Pete’s _jealous_ , per se, but… He’s absolutely jealous.

Pete sighs and dusts the crumbs from his pants. “I should get back to my mom’s.”

“You’re still not allowed home?” Will asks, pouring more coffee into each gratefully proffered mug and grimacing as Pete adds his own body weight in creamer and sugar. “You’re a godless heathen.”

“I’m _choosing_ not to go home,” Pete insists and it’s clear from the look Will and Gabe share over the scarred kitchen table that they do not believe him. “Seriously — This is _my_ decision.”

Will looks him up and down slowly. It’s a look that says Pete isn’t the catch he thinks he is, which is unfair as Pete slept in his shirt last night and hasn’t had a shower so he’s hardly looking his best. And then he says, slowly, “Aaaa- _ha.”_

“I’m _totally_ eligible,” Pete mutters. “Who wouldn’t be missing all of this?”

“You smell of sweat and desperation, you’re not a catch, you’re the thing they toss right back into the ocean,” Will says, propping himself against the countertop on a lean, angular hip. “I’m going to offer you some relationship advice, and trust me when I say it’s better than my husband’s.”

“You don’t _know_ that,” Gabe mutters. “Like, how can you quantifiably _say_ that without knowing exactly what my advice was? My advice was _killer._ Probably.”

“I’ve got ten years of lived experience that says otherwise.”

“Oh yeah? You know you love me.”

Pete is getting sick of sitting in the middle of this tennis match of fond-eyed browbeating. He clears his throat, but this does absolutely nothing, the pair of them bouncing back and forth like a gayer, better dressed episode of Married with Children. He’s Bud Bundy, waiting to be fed his line as he stares down at his coffee cup, to learn the life lesson and listen to the audience say ‘awww’. They continue to flirt through insults and ignore him and his very pressing marital issues.

“Not to interrupt,” says Pete. “But, like, I think you had some advice?”

Will pauses — for dramatic effect, presumably — and ruffles a hand through his hair. “You’ve messed up, Pete.”

“I have _not!”_ Pete insists, because he _didn’t._ “I didn’t _do_ anything!”

“Don’t you think that might be the problem?” Will asks. “Like, maybe if you’d _done_ more, your marriage wouldn’t be on the rocks? Patrick _adores_ you, has done since the second he laid eyes on you. If _Patrick_ has gotten tired of you, then you’ve messed up severely.”

 _“Patrick_ is being a whiny little bitch,” Pete says acidly, in the way he can with Will because, honestly, when you’ve puked in someone’s shower and they’ve pissed on your lawn, it invokes a special kind of bond. Across the kitchen, Gabe clamps his hands over Angel’s ears. “Did you have some advice or not? Because I am, apparently, taking my kids to school in an hour and I still have to get home and change so, you know, make it quick.”

Will appears to give this immense thought as he bites into his bagel. Pete notes that _Will’s_ bagel looks delicious. The look he gives Pete is both speculative and uncomplimentary. Pete now has 58 minutes to catch the piss trolley to Wilmette, change into clothes that don’t smell of ass and then collect his kids from the house he’s no longer welcome in.

“No,” says Will eventually, ominously and with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t have any advice for you _at all.”_

“Great,” says Pete, grabbing for his car keys and his laptop bag. “Thanks for the couch. Time to go show my husband what he’s missing out on.”

He can’t be sure, but he thinks he hears Will mutter ‘I can’t possibly imagine,’ in the second before the door closes behind him.

***

When Pete arrives at the door of his house — the house for which the mortgage company debited his checking account just yesterday — he hasn’t had time to change so he’s dressed in last night’s shirt and this morning’s irritation from lack of sleep. He is deeply, desperately spoiling for a fight. He doesn’t even think about knocking and, instead, walks straight inside and dares Patrick to object. He can take it. It’s a good day to die.

“I didn’t knock,” he tells his husband airily. “It’s my house too, and—”

“Good morning,” says Patrick formally, hurrying past without really looking at him, two backpacks in one hand and Avery in the other. “You’re late,” Pete was hoping that wouldn’t come up, “also, you look like someone who hasn’t made a correct decision in several days. If you wanted to grab a passing kid and shove on a pair of shoes that looks roughly the right size, that would be _super_ helpful. Caitlyn! I keep telling you that this isn’t the time to start your homework!”

“Oh.” Apparently discharged, Pete looks around the hallway and finds Harper chewing on the ear of a stuffed beagle. There is no way that any of this can possibly be as difficult as Patrick pretends it is. He crouches down. “I think I’m supposed to help you with your shoes.”

“I’ll bite you,” she tells him, perfectly sincere and not at all confrontational.

He blinks. “I’m sorry, what?” She gnashes her teeth in apparent demonstration. They’re a lot like _his_ teeth, white and bright and way too big for her mouth. “Honestly? I’d rather you didn’t. Come here.”

Harper considers him carefully, so he arranges his face into a look of stern, fatherly command. She takes half a step towards him and, internally, he wonders why Patrick ever complained that this was difficult. This is task number one and, already, he’s killing it. Then she stops, tilts her pretty little face towards him and says, “No.”

Pete is… not expecting to have his authority so summarily dismissed quite so quickly. He frowns: She is _three_ and he is her _father_. How hard can this possibly be?

“Harper, come here _right now_ and put on your shoes.”

Because Harper is… he hesitates to think ‘a dick’ because she’s _three,_ but honestly, she’s kind of acting like a dick right now... anyway, because she’s determined to make him look like a terrible father, she darts away and towards the living room. She _laughs_ as she does it. Now, Pete is crouching in the hallway, _alone_ , staring at the place her braids disappeared around the door. This is bullshit. He grabs a pair of baby blue converse that look too small to be Caitlyn’s and too big to be Avery’s and gives chase.

“Harper, get your butt back here right now!”

“Butt!” she shrieks. Seriously, he needs to have a long discussion with Patrick about the lack of basic discipline taking place in the house. Apparently, he’s supposed to find her using echolocation because there is _no fucking sign of her_ in the living room. “Butt! Butt! Butt! Dad’s a butt! Butt face!”

He uses the stream of sass mouth to locate her, half under the couch and half behind the curtains. True to her word, as he slings her under his arm and marches her back to the hallway, she sinks her teeth into the back of his hand. There is no one around to offer him the kind of praise he believes he deserves when he refrains from a) cursing colorfully and b) dropping her.

“That,” he tells her when he finally wrestles her onto the bottom step and nurses the savage tooth marks scarred into the tender skin of his hand, “was _not_ very nice, Harper! Why the f— Why would you _do_ that?”

Instead of providing a satisfactory answer, a display of contrition or even the slightest bit of concern about the furiously red imprint of her dental records imprinted into her father’s actual _skin_ like Play-doh, she shrugs breezily and says, “Daddy sings the shoelace song.”

There must be another Pete in another universe who would nod knowledgeably at that. This Pete, however, knows all of those words but has no idea what they mean collected together into that sentence. Behind his eyes, a low, slow tension headache begins to throb.

 _What the fuck_ , he thinks, _is the fucking shoelace song?_

“Okay,” Patrick is back and gesturing at him with the baby, “I have to get going, I left the car seats in the garage so, like... Good luck, slugger!”

Patrick kisses the baby then presses her onto Pete and she smiles. At least, she scrunches up her round little face and shows the tips of brilliant white teeth set into her wet, red maw. “Blah!” she declares, and shoves her spit-wet fingers into his mouth. He spits them right back out. Patrick leans around him and kisses Harper on the forehead, relaxed and casual. The lack of kiss offered to Pete is pointed.

“Wait!” Pete declares desperately, still clutching a shoe and attempting to box in Harper like a physics equation, Avery slithering from his grasp and towards the floor. He has no idea what he wants Patrick to _do_ beyond change his mind entirely, stay home and show Pete what the fuck, exactly, he’s supposed to do. Better yet, he would like to assume a supervisory role whilst Patrick does it for him. Patrick pauses at the door, car keys in hand and raises his eyebrows quizzically. There is no way on earth Pete is going to vocalize any of that. “Nothing.”

Patrick smiles. It’s this slow, beatific smile, that slips across his mouth like molten honey, the kind of smile worn by someone who is completely and totally at peace. He reaches for the door like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Okay gang, be good for your dad, I’ll see you guys later, love you all,” and to Pete he says, simply, “have fun,” and then he closes the door and the house is endlessly silent.

“So,” starts Pete, but he doesn’t get to say anything else because both Harper and Avery burst into loud, wet, _snotty_ tears right there on the hallway floor. “Oh _God.”_

Pete opens and closes his mouth a few times but nothing _useful_ or _helpful_ or even _coherent_ comes out. Before he can join them — and God knows, he wants to join them — Caitlyn appears at the top of the stairs looking bored and apathetic and deeply, reassuringly _confident_.

“Dad,” she says, descending the stairs in her flannel shirt and ripped up jeans, a vision of 90s grunge in a pre-teen package, “you’re like, seriously awful at this.”

She plucks Avery from his arms and Pete considers weeping with gratitude.

He snaps, “I’m not _awful_ , I’m doing _fine_.”

“Butt,” says Harper tearily, from her position on the step. “Dad’s a butt.”

He is, quite clearly, not doing fine.

“Daaad!” Noah greets him from the kitchen. He is the first to sound delighted to see Pete and, against every rule in the parenting handbook, Pete decides immediately that he has a favorite child. “Do you think we could get a beaver? You know, as a pet? They’re _so cool_ and I _think_ we have room in the backyard. Oh! You need to come look at my Mario Kart score and watch this, I can do orange justice, and hype, check it out, it’s _so amazing_. What’s your favorite Fortnite dance? I bet you can dab, do you want me to teach you? It’s _so easy_ , just, like this, see? You know first person shooters? That’s like what we can see for real, but second person is—”

“Noah, please,” Pete begs. “You’re — That’s just a wall of sound, I can’t — Oh! You got her shoes on? That’s awesome,” Pete beams at Caitlyn and once again reorders his favorites list. Caitlyn rolls her eyes at him and he adjusts it once more. Avery is still crying. “How the hell does your dad do this every single morning?”

“He’s a pro,” Caitlyn informs him drily. “We really need to get going if we’re not going to be late for school.”

Pete nods. He’s pretty sure this can’t possibly get worse.

On the driveway, he discovers that not only can it get worse, but that there are several descending circles of worse waiting to open up beneath him. If this was Dante’s Inferno then the little incident in the hallway was merely purgatory. Right now, he’s pretty sure he’s in the fourth or fifth circle of Hell, staring at the mess of straps, clips and buckles that make up Avery’s car seat.

“Dad,” says Caitlyn doubtfully. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

She is holding Avery while Harper and Noah compete for who is going to kill themselves first in their attempt to scale the willow oak in the front yard. Pete gave up shouting approximately three minutes after he _started_ shouting because, he realized, they had no intention of paying any attention to him at all. He figures they might be easier to control if they’re in traction.

(He’s almost certain he doesn’t _actually_ mean this.)

“I know _exactly_ what I’m doing,” he insists irritably, glaring between the diagram on his phone and the tangle of seatbelt jammed inside the inner workings of the car seat. _Advanced shibari_ is probably simpler than this. He doesn’t say this out loud. “These things are _supposed_ to be simple!”

“Dad,” says Caitlyn in this long-suffering, _Patrick_ voice. “We’re going to be late for school.”

“There is no way that’s going to happen,” Pete says, his teeth gritted, half-blind with sweat running into his eyes. His skin is molten, dripping, wrapping him in his own panic. He takes a deep breath and, with a determined snarl, he shoves the car seat across the back of the car. “The damn thing _clearly_ doesn’t fit in my car! Okay, this is fine, we’re not going to be late, I…” he trails off and casts a desperate look along the street. At the end of the block is a bench and a signpost that says, quite simply, BUS STOP. He smiles. “I have an idea.”

“Oh God,” says Caitlyn.

***

“An Americano, please,” Patrick smiles and points at the counter, “and a muffin. A blueberry one.”

He retreats to a corner table with his order and his laptop. The coffee shop is quiet and no one is demanding a share of his muffin. It’s barely 9am and the day stretches ahead of him, gloriously unfilled.

He types a couple of sentences of tomorrow’s blog post — a, he hopes, humorous look into the dark underbelly of a gay dad infiltrating mommy and me yoga — then stares out of the window. It is blissfully quiet. He texts Joe.

_Hey man, check it out, breakfast and blogging like a REAL human_

_Shit dude who u kill 2 score THAT???!?!!_

_Pete is taking them to school :)_

_Dam will keep eyes open 4 this on the nws. Ru 2 figurin stuff out…?_

Patrick pauses, his thumb hovering over the screen.

_No. We still good for next week?_

_U knw it bby yoga dadz 4 lyfe_

_You are SO not cool._

He puts down his phone and tries to type.

Immediately, he begins to worry about Pete. It’s not that he could smell alcohol on him in the hallway — Patrick is not desperate enough to prove a point that he would endanger his children — but it’s clear that Pete is not recovering well from another night spent chasing the bottom of a (many) bottle(s). Not that Pete is an alcoholic, no, it’s not quite there yet.

Still, Patrick checks the signal on his phone, just in case. Then he stares out of the window and hopes, privately, that Avery throws up on Pete’s expensive shoes.

***

“This is _fun_ , right?” Pete says brightly. The brightness is camouflaging the way he _actually_ wants to run away and never, ever come back. He would give every penny in his checking account, his car and both of his testicles to be sitting in a business meeting right now. There is, summarily, _nothing easy_ about taking care of the kids.

Noah dabs enthusiastically, Pete assumes this is a yes, Harper hums and drums her heels against the seat, Avery says, very seriously, ‘ _gah_ ’, which Pete is counting as a win. If Caitlyn sinks any lower into the hood of her coat, or strains any further away from him, he assumes she will cease to exist on the physical plane.

“I hate you,” she says with deep and enduring vehemence.

“Good,” he says beatifically, staring out of the window. His bus timetable, called up on his phone, informs him that they will only be fifty minutes late for school. This is barely worth mentioning at all.

“ _Daaad_ ,” says Noah, bouncing in his seat in a way that makes Pete feel car sick. “Today is the bake sale.”

Pete looks at him, “Oh. Do you need, like… cash?”

“No,” says Caitlyn’s hood. “He needs, like, _cake.”_

Pete’s yoyo-ing blood pressure crests a particularly large wave once more. He has the unnerving sense that Patrick has set him up but knows that there is no way in hell he’s going to succumb. He bites his lip and looks out of the window and sees both an upcoming bus stop _and_ a 7-Eleven attached to a gas station. He has An Idea.

“Everyone off the bus.”

***

“Can I get you something else?” asks the waitress. Her name badge says Audrey. Patrick feels a wonderful sense of bonhomie towards her, like the sunshine is spilling out of him and flooding gold and luminous across the coffee shop floor.

He nods and rolls his shoulders. No one has spoken to him this politely since Avery was born. “Another coffee would be _great_ , thank you. And do you have any of those cinnamon rolls the size of my face?”

“Coming right up.”

_Ordered a cinnamon roll. Feeling decadent._

_Ur a sinamon roll ;)_

Patrick blinks at the phone. He feels very warm suddenly and blames the spring sunlight streaming through the cafe window. It’s just a typo. _Definitely_ just a typo.

As long as Patrick doesn’t think about the unholy mess of his marriage, he could almost be happy. If he doesn’t consider the inevitability of custody disagreements, alimony warfare and the horrifying concept of dating sites, then everything is fine.

He does miss the kids, though.

***

“Oh, dad,” Caitlyn says. She sounds the opposite of encouraging. “Today is the _bake sale.”_

“For which I have provided baked goods,” Pete makes an all-encompassing hand gesture above the box of prepackaged cupcakes. He nearly drops Avery and resolves not to do that again. “See? Bakes, to be sold.”

“Uh…” Noah says, his backpack on both shoulders. When Pete was a kid, that was social suicide. He assumes Noah has picked up this trait from Patrick. “But dad, those are _store_ cupcakes.”

At this, Pete nods earnestly. They are store bought. Noah was with him in the store when he bought them. He wonders if the public school system in Glenview is all it’s cracked up to be then remembers Patrick and assumes it’s not. Then, he wonders if maybe he’s hallucinating from stress and he’s actually holding, like, an inflatable pineapple or something. Honestly, this whole morning has felt farcical enough that nothing would surprise him at this point. The dude getting on the bus is actually Elvis? Pete wouldn’t turn a fucking hair. _That_ is how unacceptably out of step his day has been so far.

He peers at the carton. They definitely look like cupcakes, the icing is so pink with additives that Pete can see the hyperactivity hazing above them like nuclear waste.

“Yes,” he says confidently, “cupcakes.” The wheels on the bus go round and round and apparently, Avery gets motion sickness. She brings up her breakfast all over his knee and left hand. “Oh, Jesus…”

“Jesus,” says Harper softly. Before he can tell her that this is a _bad_ word — at least in this context, although the stance of organized religion towards his sexuality makes him think of it as a bad word in general — she continues. Loudly. “Daddy, is _asshole_ a bad word?” This, he decides, is worse.

“Yes! Who taught you...” There are, officially, way too many parenting plates currently in the air for him to have a hope in hell of keeping them spinning. He looks for something to wipe off his hand and wonders, for a brief and desperate moment, if anyone would judge him for using Noah’s jacket. Like he can sense the path of his father’s thought process, Noah subtly edges away. “Uh…”

“Daddy brings spit-up cloths,” Noah informs him. This is unhelpful when they’re several miles and two city buses away from the diaper bag. Pete grunts and wipes his hand on the leg of his already trashed pants. He is hot all over, like every part of him is made of sour, panicky sweat. Male pride be damned, he would trade everything he owns for the papoose right now.

“Okay,” says Caitlyn wearily, clearly entirely done with his inadequacy. “So, here’s the thing, you can’t bring store cupcakes to the bake sale.”

When he trusts himself to speak, Pete’s voice is tight, “Why not? A cake is a cake, right?”

“Except it’s not when you buy them from a gas station. Look, _no one_ brings store cake, alright? Daddy _always_ makes them himself, and he puts in little flags with all of the ingredients and the flavors and to let anyone know if there’s nuts or—”

“ _Daddy,”_ he emphasizes the word with air quotes, well, a single air quote since he can’t let go of Avery in case she makes another misguided attempt to throw herself to her death or, at the very least, a severe tetanus on the floor of the bus, “didn’t make any cupcakes this time. So, it’s store bought or nothing, does Noah want to take _nothing_ , Caitlyn? Is that what the two of you want? There’s an ingredients list _right on the pack_ , and anyway, who even has a nut allergy, let’s be real. Okay, does anyone else have anything to say about _daddy?”_

Caitlyn and Noah share a look. It’s clearly about Pete and it’s obviously far from complimentary. Avery stares at him, wide-eyed and unblinking and so very like Patrick it’s startling. She says, “Egboo,” which Pete thinks is encouraging. He nods at her sagely. At least this one loves him, even if babies are basically a lot like puppies in that they love whoever feeds them.

Harper sighs wistfully, “I miss daddy.”

The other two look as though they agree, but they’re both too polite to say it. The middle school looms just beyond the next stop. It is 10:13am. Pete feels as though he has been travelling to school for the past four years.

“We made it,” he says fervently as they descend the bus steps: Pete in last night’s clothes, a baby in one hand, a toddler gripping the other, the older two edging away like they don’t want to be seen in public with him. “I got you to school. Do you need me to sign a late slip or something? I can say you had a dentist appointment.”

Caitlyn looks him up and down dubiously. She says, “Honestly, it’s fine. We’ll risk the detention.”

At her side, Noah shoots him a thumbs up. “I missed math,” he says gleefully. “This is the single greatest day of my _life_.”

They walk away from him without looking back. He shouts after them, “Have a great day! I love you! Wait! You forgot the cupcakes!”

They don’t look back.

“Okay, who wants to play ‘wait very nicely on that bench for a lady from child protective services while daddy finds a truck to walk out in front of’?” he asks brightly. Harper ignores him. “How about a cupcake?”

“No thank you, dad,” Harper says, very politely. “Daddy’s cupcakes are nice. Those are _yucky.”_

“Boo,” says Avery. “Da.”

All of this, this whole shooting match made up of children and toddlers and babies and conflicting and competing needs, all of it is supposed to be _easy_. That is what he’s told himself every single day in his corner office overlooking the park and the lake and clear blue sky stretching endless out towards New York. Patrick has the easy job and Pete — with his meetings and deadlines and coffee breaks and lunches at the Greek place on the corner — had it so much harder. His planets are entirely realigned by the devastating knowledge that he barely managed to get the kids to school. He feels more failure than man, a dying star folding in on itself as the world and Chicago and Westbrook Elementary School goes on around him.

Pete dumps the cupcakes into the trash, then he crosses the street with the kids and waits at the bus stop. This did not go according to plan.

***

Four bedtimes later, Patrick descends the stairs and wonders if the carry out in the fridge is likely to give him salmonella. Ordering more is a possibility but he has no idea what, if any, financial contribution Pete intends to make to the household moving forward so he probably shouldn’t be profligate. Still, there’s a couple tubs of Phish Food in the freezer. Top it with blueberries and he probably won’t succumb to scurvy.

He screams, terrified, when he finds a human-shaped shadow sitting at his kitchen table then calms, embarrassed, when he realizes that the shadow is Pete. “What the hell are you doing hiding in the dark?” he demands, not unreasonably. “I thought you left when I took the kids up.”

Pete blinks owlishly in the glow of the overhead lights. He’s still wearing his stained shirt, his eyes are bloodshot and his skin is sallow. Somehow, he remains the most impossibly handsome man Patrick has ever laid eyes on.

He lifts his shoulders and says, “I don’t want to get divorced.”

Patrick hasn’t allowed himself to say, or even think, the D-word in a week. Aside from ‘dickead’ and ‘douchebag’, he’s been thinking about those d-words a lot. He’s been talking in double meanings to his mom, to Joe, to the kids, using phrasebook lexicon like ‘trial separation’ and ‘living apart’. Divorce is a dirty word. Hearing Pete say it out loud punches all of the air from Patrick’s lungs. He wants to disappear, to slip down a crack in the universe and never stop falling. Anything to avoid crash landing into a land called Divorce. He doesn’t say this.

Instead, he leans against the counter and takes a deep breath and says, “I didn’t either.”

“Didn’t?” Pete repeats. He doesn’t sparkle like he used to, he’s dull, buried somewhere in the catacombs of financial obligation and apathetic dislike. When did they stop making one another happy? “But you do now.”

“I already told you,” Patrick says, “I’m done with being something that makes your life easier while you make mine harder. I’m not your — your fucking emotional support _roomba_. I care about you, Pete. God knows, I probably always will, but I’m not...”

 _Not in love with you_ , he thinks. _I am not in love with my husband._ He doesn’t say it out loud.

“What if I could make it good again?” Pete asks quickly, the words tripping over one another.

It’s far more painful to watch Pete attempt to resurrect their marriage on the gurney of their own mutual indifference than it would be if he just didn’t pretend to care. _He’s doing this because he’s embarrassed,_ Patrick reminds himself, _he’s doing this because he doesn’t want to_ tell _anyone that he’s getting a divorce, not because he wants to remain married._

“This isn’t a game. We have kids to think about, they need—”

“Two parents,” Pete points out. “There’s been a _ton_ of studies that shows kids do better in life when they have two parents at home. Even if you won’t do it for me, you should do it for them.”

“Emotional manipulation involving our _children?_ Is that really the level you want to sink to?”

“I just want my family back together! You — I feel like you owe me a shot at this, we’ve been married for _twelve years_ , Patrick.”

“And what do _you_ owe _me?”_

Aggressively, Patrick yanks open the refrigerator door and extracts the leftovers. He tears into them, hearty and savage and refusing to take the time to heat them in the microwave, E. Coli be damned. He does not offer Pete a share.

“You went to Moon Pie without me?” Pete asks, and it’s ridiculous that he should sound so _hurt_ about a visit to a restaurant when he’s never sounded remotely apologetic about missing dance recitals or soccer games or trips to the doctors office. For this reason, Patrick only grunts and takes another bite. “Look, just give me a chance! I swear I’ll actually try!”

Patrick slams the pizza box down onto the counter. It doesn’t bang in a satisfying way, instead it makes a soft, wet _flump_. He glares at Pete like he is solely responsible. “Why now? Why has it taken you this long to give a shit? Is it because you want to change, or because you want things to go back to the way they were before?”

For a rare and beautiful moment, Pete is silent. He has nothing to say because Patrick is right and, for once, he is robbed of a comeback. Patrick scowls at his stupid, handsome profile and Pete glares at the Moon Pie box on the counter and it seems like they may be frozen this way forever. Maybe someone will turn them into an art exhibit, affix a little white card to the corner of the breakfast island that says ‘Marriage in Breakdown - 2019’ and couples will stand at velvet ropes and stare and swear they won’t end up the same.

Then, Pete breaks the silence. He says, “Ten dates.”

“Ten dates?” Patrick repeats, like he can’t count or speak English. “What do you mean?”

“I mean let me take you on ten dates. Let me try to fix this.”

“You think you can fix this with ten fucking _dates?”_

“Give me that. If you still don’t want to be married to me, I’ll sign the divorce papers, I’ll agree to whatever you want. Just give me ten dates.”

Sometimes, Patrick imagines the Hollywood adaptation of his life. He scrolls the internal Rolodex of never-ending music in the dark recesses of his gray matter and pulls together soundtracks for driving the kids to school or going for coffee with the PTA moms. Right now, he imagines Pete would be played by Vince Vaughn, he would be Jason Bateman and somehow, this would become an unconventional, kooky romcom with a Taylor Swift soundtrack. He takes a deep breath and thinks of his children upstairs in their beds. He does not want his life passport stamped with Divorce. He nods, because he knows Pete will fail but this way, he can say he provided him with just enough rope to hang himself.

“Ten dates?” he clarifies; Pete nods. “You know — You know you can’t _actually_ fix this with, like, a couple of dinner dates and a movie, don’t you?”

“Let me try,” Pete says, rising to his feet. He looks older, far more tired than Patrick ever remembers seeing him. “Please.”

“Fine,” he says, eventually. “Whatever.”

Pete is animated once more, attempting to hug him but Patrick stiffens. He isn’t ready for physical contact quite yet. Pete gets the hint and backs away and Patrick is more grateful than Pete deserves, more grateful than he _ought_ to be.

“You won’t regret this,” he assures Patrick, scrambling into his jacket and fumbling for his car keys. Honestly, this is moot because Patrick already _is_ regretting this with every fiber of his being that can experience regret _._ “I’ll text you later! I — Thank you for this. I swear you won’t regret it. I can do this, okay? I can do this and everything, uh — _everything_ will be absolutely fine and you _will not_ regret it.”

Patrick watches him leave and then looks at Penny, sniffing hopefully around his feet.

“Pen,” he says softly, she cocks her head and looks at him from bright button eyes. “What the fuck did I just agree to?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, comments and kudos are always appreciated :D
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr [here!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sn1tchesandtalkers)
> 
> Coming up next week... The first date. I mean, Pete can't _possibly_ mess that up. Can he?


	5. Chapter 5

It is, Pete decides, vaguely insulting that Patrick isn’t more enamoured by his Grand Romantic Gesture.

Honestly, Pete thought it was pretty Jude Law of him, throwing himself out there like that and making a dramatic offer in the heat of the moment. It deserved at least a ‘wow’. It deserved, he thinks, something more than a ‘whatever’ and then three days of radio silence. Pete is bad with silence because he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to fill it with banal small talk about the kids and the house and the fact the roof needs repointing at some point or if he’s supposed to pretend they’ve just met and this is a do-over.

(He suspects he shouldn’t lead with mentioning the roof repairs. Apparently being asked to liaise with repairmen is a trigger point for Patrick and he’s hoping to avoid a repeat of what he’s privately named The Big Gay Diaper Disaster.)

Still, he has high hopes for his frankly brilliant plan. Even Will agreed it wasn’t a _bad_ idea, which is the closest Will’s ever come to calling an idea of Pete’s _good._

Pete has actually put a reasonable amount of thought into this date, by the metrics with which the effort he generally places into social interactions with his husband can be measured. Not that he usually half-asses things but they haven’t organized a babysitter and been on an actual date since… Well, the exact date and time is lost but Pete is pretty sure the Obama administration was in its first term. So, it’s been a while and this necessitates some kind of quantifiable effort.

This time, standing on the front porch, he feels self-conscious enough to raise his hand and knock. Not because he thinks he _should_ , but because he thinks it might possibly add a couple of points to his shockingly low scorecard if he does. He waits.

“Where are we going?” Patrick asks, the second he opens the door, in lieu of all other appropriately husband-y greetings like ‘I missed you’, or ‘how have you been’, or ‘hi’. Pete blinks at him with exaggerated slowness and then Patrick seems to get it. “Oh, like, _hello_ and all, but I sort of need to know because I don’t know if I need a jacket or a coat, or what.”

“We’re going bowling,” Pete beams at him and waits for the congratulations, for the disbelief that he remembered.

Instead, Patrick looks… disappointed. “Oh,” he says, “bowling.”

Bowling is, in fact, a stroke of genius on Pete’s part. He remembers taking Patrick bowling on their first date and he remembers Patrick’s mouth tasting of cotton candy and root beer on the steps of the bowling alley and he _remembers_ Patrick looking at him like he’d hung the moon and the stars and every other heavenly body in the sky above them. So, really, it would be nice if Patrick could _also_ remember and act suitably impressed.

_“Oh, bowling?”_ Pete repeats, turning it into a question. “You don’t like bowling now?”

“I like bowling!” Noah informs them both, barreling in from the living room, his socks skidding on the hardwood. He slides to an inelegant halt against the refrigerator and says, around a hailstorm of falling alphabet magnets, “Are we going bowling? We’re going bowling!”

“Well...” says Patrick.

“No,” says Pete.

They stare at one another and then at Noah and then Patrick sighs, “Look, this is sort of a thing just for dad and I, but maybe at the weekend…”

“Oh,” says Noah. He looks hurt but then he brightens. “Does that mean Joe is sitting with us?”

“Joe?” asks Pete lightly. It doesn’t work, he sounds furious, suspicious, many words that end with -ious.

“Joe.” Patrick repeats, with such finality that Pete can hear the period. He shakes his head and ushers Noah out of the room. Pete is about to take a breath but then Caitlyn walks in, like an extra on the set of an episode of Friends. She has Avery on her hip and Harper by the hand.

“We’re going bowling?” she asks. “Now? But they’re in pajamas...”

“No,” Patrick repeats, pinching the bridge of his nose and gesturing into the hallway. “ _You_ are going to brush your teeth and get ready for bed so that we can pretend to Uncle Joe that you’re nice, well-behaved children and not basically feral. _I_ am, apparently, going bowling.”

It’s annoying that Patrick doesn’t sound remotely thrilled to spend the evening in Pete’s company. In fact, more to the point, he sounds resentful, like he can think of a dozen or more different things he would rather do with many other people than spend it at a bowling alley with his husband. Pete would like to bet, based purely on the inflection of his voice, that many of those things involve _Joe_.

“ _Uncle_ Joe?” Pete says sarcastically. “I didn’t realize the two of you were related. Can’t Caitlyn look after the younger ones?”

“ _Yes_ ,” says Caitlyn emphatically.

“No,” says Patrick just as firmly. “Absolutely _not.”_

“ _Thank you_ , dad,” she says. “I am eleven years old; I do _not_ need a sitter!”

Pete is floored by how very like _him_ she is, this passionate little thing — all fire and fury — with her chin tilted up and her curls a cloud around her face. It makes him proud and protective and terrified all at once. He wants to tell her to take on the world whilst simultaneously dragging her away from it so he can keep her safe from the boys she’ll meet just like him and the people who’ll take advantage of her until the fire bleeds out of her just like Patrick. It’s... confusing.

This is, Pete thinks, his chance to demonstrate his suitability as a partner and a parent, to show Patrick that he’s capable of taking the initiative in family-related incidents and taking control. He says, “Next time—”

“ _Next time_ ,” Patrick cuts him off, “how about _you_ organize the sitter? Hmm?”

Pete decides that this is probably his cue to stop talking about sitters if he wants this whole ‘ten dates’ thing to progress beyond trading insults in the kitchen.  “Okay, so. Bowling.” He claps his hands together in a demonstration of enthusiastic anticipation, hoping that this might giddy Patrick along a little. Patrick blinks at the tasteful chandelier over their heads and avoids eye contact. “Are you stoked?”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Patrick says vaguely as the girls wander away, clearly bored. “No. It’ll be nice. Fun.”

“I brought you flowers,” Pete says grandly. He holds them up in demonstration then thrusts them forward into Patrick’s arms.

Patrick takes them, but not gratefully, not really. Instead, his already weak smile uncurls a little, his mouth going flat and hard as he holds them at arm’s length, like an IED. “Oh,” he says, eventually. “Thanks.”

“You’re saying ‘oh’ like, a _lot,”_ he points out, “Way, way more than you would usually say it.”

“Am I?” Patrick says. “Oh. Sorry.”

Then, he shuffles across the kitchen and dumps the flowers in the sink and he splutters, coughs and sucks deeply on the inhaler he liberates from the medicine cabinet. God, Patrick needs to work out more, it’s like he gets out of breath grating cheese. Pete is about to suggest their second date (and probably third through tenth and significantly beyond) should take place at Gabe’s gym.

Patrick huffs, “Sorry. I mean, it was a nice gesture, but lilies irritate my asthma.”

“Oh,” says Pete, because apparently the interjection is contagious. “I would’ve brought candy, but…”

What Pete _means_ is _but I thought the flowers looked better; but they cost a ton of cash at the florist by the office and I live for big-money gestures; but I figured the kids would eat the candy and you wouldn’t actually get any._ Of course, Patrick sets about misinterpreting it immediately.

“But you think I’m fat,” he says. He says it so evenly and with such matter-of-fact certainty that Pete is momentarily thrown. Because Pete _does_ think Patrick is fat but he’s never _actually_ said that out loud.

“That’s not what I meant,” Pete insists. He is terrible at admitting when he’s being an asshole but being accused of it when he’s _not_ is particularly galling.

“I know you think I’m fat,” says Patrick, his voice and eyes entirely flat. “Because if you didn’t think I was fat, you wouldn’t have bought me bathroom scales for my birthday.”

Pete flinches. That was not _supposed_ to be an insult. Patrick kept saying he wanted to lose weight, Pete only intended to provide some positive reinforcement, a little bit of quantifiable encouragement. They were _good_ scales, too. He researched them for hours. They were the kind that digitally analyze body fat, the kind that plot weight loss charts and hooks up to a smart watch. They cost more than a decent pair of limited-edition sneakers. He still has no idea why Patrick excused himself to the bathroom and cried for forty minutes.

He tries not to think about the times he’s found Patrick in front of the bathroom mirror since then, pinching at the swell of pale flesh over the band of his boxers. He tries — and fails — not to think about how thoroughly _miserable_ Patrick looks in those moments. He reassures himself that it is definitely not _his_ fault that Patrick has a few body issues.

“I didn’t — I thought you _liked_ flowers. I got your favorites.”

“My _favorites_ are lilacs, I’ve been allergic to lilies since I was three,” Patrick bites out. “I think it’s come up during the _fifteen years_ we’ve been together. You know how my mom loves that story: It starts with ‘remember when we went to your cousin’s wedding’ and it ends with ‘and that’s how you almost died on Gam Gam’s lap’. Remember?”

It’s implicit in Patrick’s tone that he knows Pete does not, in fact, remember the near-death experience at Patrick’s cousin’s wedding. He stares at the floor as the silence throbs on around them; it seems there’s an awful lot that Pete doesn’t know about his husband. Finally, he addresses the toes of his shoes.

“Do you still want to go out with me? Or not?”

Patrick sighs and shoves his glasses up his nose. He looks slightly further from impending respiratory collapse than he did when he was within two feet of the fucking lilies. He shakes his head and sighs. “Okay, let’s go.”

He doesn’t actually _say_ ‘and get this over with’, but Pete hears it anyway. Somehow, he doesn’t snarl at Joe when he arrives, biting down on his tongue until it burns to stop himself from demanding to know when, exactly, he started fucking his husband. Joe is handsome, it pains him to admit, taller and good-looking and effortlessly dad-ish with Pete’s kids tumbling around him like puppies. Those traitors seem demonstrably more excited to spend an evening in with Joe Trohman that they seemed about the mistaken prospect of a night at the bowling alley with their father. Something is dramatically wrong here; Pete just can’t work out how to blame Patrick. Yet.

“Thanks for doing this,” Patrick says to Joe as Pete hovers by the door. He hopes his body language makes it clear how violently opposed he is to having this man on _his_ couch, with _his_ kids. Is he too old to mark his territory by pissing on the kitchen floor?

“Hey, watching your four is a piece of cake, you should have the twins sometime. Go on, have fun.” Then he squeezes Patrick’s shoulder. Pete can taste something bitter at the back of his tongue. He slams outside without saying goodbye and waits on the porch steps, breathing deeply.

“That was rude,” Patrick says, joining him with fogging breath and raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, well,” says Pete. So is fucking someone else’s husband before his side of the bed has gone cold. “I don’t like him.”

“And yet he speaks so highly of you,” Patrick squints towards the driveway, “Where’s your car?”

“I got an Uber.”

“We spent a lot of money on your car,” Patrick says. This is true, the car was expensive but Pete’s salary pays for it and it’s not like he’s ever questioned how much Patrick spends on kids’ shoes. “What with this and the bus incident, I’m wondering if that’s money well-spent.”

“The car seats don’t fit in my car,” Pete points out. “That’s not my fault.”

“That’s why _I_ bought a practical car. Because we have _children_ , who require _car seats.”_

“Do you want a beer when we get there?” Pete asks, changing the subject smoothly as they stand on the driveway. Patrick pauses and sighs and reaches into his pocket. He unlocks the minivan without a word and climbs into the driver’s side. Free to partake of that beer himself, and safe in the knowledge that he doesn’t have to spend money on another Uber, Pete beams at him. “Awesome, thanks!”

The car ride is awkward. It’s not that Pete expected everything to click back into place right away but he assumed — stupidly — that it would be easier than it currently is. He’s caught between desperation and cold, blue waves of irritation that Patrick is, for some reason, refusing to just play along and make this straightforward. Every conversational jump board that Pete provides is knocked back, every observation about the subdivision, the town, the encroaching city sprawl of Chicago creeping along the freeway, is rebuffed with a grunt of ‘that happened _years_ ago, Pete, you didn’t bother to come with me to the planning meeting’.

“Here we are,” Pete says pointlessly, as they pull up in the parking lot of the bowling alley. It was an independent when they first came here, now it’s a Lucky Strike, plastic and neon and painfully artificial. There’s a metaphor buried in there somewhere, under the layers of blue and red tube lighting and glossy posters advertising midweek specials. He keeps the observation to himself: There is no doubt in his mind that Patrick will not only _find_ the metaphor but deliver it as sharply as possible. “Did you want something to eat before we go inside?”

This, it turns out, is not the right thing to say to someone who believes they were called _fat_ thirty minutes previously. Patrick climbs out of the car without a word and slams the door. Assessing him from behind, his ass under his jeans, the soft little muffin top visible under his cardigan, Pete thinks that this is probably for the best. He follows him inside.

The bowling shoes are too tight, damp and sticky with the sweat of whoever wore them before Pete. A cursory blast of antibacterial toe-jam remover never seems to be enough to purge the knowledge that many someone else’s calluses, blisters and, probably, fungal nail infections were shoved into these shoes before Pete has been handed them. He ties the laces and promises himself he won’t think about it. He orders that beer while Patrick, with a completely unnecessary eye roll, orders a Diet Coke.

They walk to their lane without touching. It’s like Patrick has triggered a forcefield of Arthur C. Clarke proportions around himself. Whenever Pete strays within a two-foot radius he is burnt with the irradiating heat of barely contained dislike. This is ridiculous. Patrick is his _husband_. He’s held his hand and seen him naked and sucked him off behind the dumpsters of this very bowling alley (because he was an extremely classy dude at the age of 25). He moves to touch the small of Patrick’s back; Patrick hangs back to check the league table just long enough that Pete misses entirely, his hand hanging limp and useless between them. The motion is casual enough that Pete has no grounds on which to object, yet obvious enough that it was entirely intentional. He tucks his hands into his pockets and stares at the lurid carpet until they reach their lane.

“So...” he says, laboriously entering their details into the electronic scorecard. Then he pauses. He has absolutely nothing else to say. That in mind, he collects his bowling ball from the ball return and resolves to impress Patrick with his athletic prowess. “Watch and learn, Rickster.”

Patrick grips the edge of the bench in both hands and smiles vaguely at his rental shoes. He shrugs and says flatly, “Yeah.” Pete loses his tenuous hold on his patience.

“Right. Well. You could at least _pretend_ you want to be here.”

Patrick says nothing, which in fact says it all.

Pete _wants_ to point out that no one actively _coerced_ Patrick into being here. He _wants_ to say that he’s actually _trying_ , as requested: This is where they had their first fucking _date_ , for god’s sake, how much more romance does Patrick _want_ from him? Mostly, he wants to tell him to try fucking _smiling_ for once in his miserable, pedestrian, _boring_ life. But he doesn’t. Because none of those things seem particularly conducive to getting Pete back into his own house in the foreseeable future.

(It’s not that Pete actually _believes_ Patrick will divorce him. Men like Patrick do not divorce men like Pete and, God knows, Pete could probably write a list of potential replacements. But it would be nice if Patrick could make the whole ‘reconciliation’ nonsense a little bit easier on the both of them).

Instead of saying anything at all, Pete grabs a ball from the return, takes a short run up and hurls it as hard and as fast as he can in the direction of the pins. They burst apart like they’ve been detonated, ricocheting against the alley. Strike. He picks up a second without even trying and then, grinning, he turns to back to Patrick.

“Fuck yeah!” he declares (if he fist pumps, he demands that no one judges him for it.) “Fucking _beat that_ , Stump-Wentz. Go ahead. Come at me.”

Pete is expecting some kind of reaction; a hug, a kiss, a fucking _high five_ , he doesn’t care. Just some kind of acknowledgement of his superior bowling skills. If Pete were a caveman, this would prove his indisputable ability to keep a whole bunch of useless, hungry mouths sufficiently sustained on mammoth steaks. He waits, jubilant.

Patrick climbs to his feet. He examines the scoreboard for a second and then stares down at the inner workings of the ball return. He shrugs and then he jerks his thumb back over his shoulder. “I’m going to the bathroom. You can take my turn, I don’t mind.”

He doesn’t look impressed at all.

***

Look, the thing is, Patrick prepared for this date with the kind of grim determination reserved for military operations. He created a playlist that he blasted while he showered and it was constructed of Go Fuck Yourself anthems featuring such well-known classics as I Hate You So Much Right Now, Stronger (both Britney _and_ Kelly Clarkson) and, gloriously, We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together. It’s notable, he thinks, that the best songs about terrible men are written by heterosexual women.

He toweled off angrily, brushed his teeth angrily, he dressed angrily and he only _stopped_ feeling angry when he descended the stairs and found the kids splitting a Tupperware of chocolate and peanut butter cookies he made as an apology for the bake sale debacle. Then, he began feeling guilty instead which, it transpired, was not much of an improvement.

Honestly, though? Watching Pete nail strike after strike is doing very little for his rapidly diminishing love for his husband, or his libido. It would be sexier, he decides, to watch Pete do literally anything at all that isn’t crashing a fourteen-pound ball through a stack of wooden pins and then smirking smugly at the up-tick of his score on the screen over their heads. Patrick includes watching Pete down raw eggs mixed with protein powder in this list. He includes watching Pete _trim his toenails_ in this list _._

And yes, okay, Patrick understands why Pete chose this particular venue as the first point in his ten-step quest of seduction. He hasn’t forgotten their first date (which, coincidentally, became the anniversary of their first kiss, their first eager fumble in an alleyway _and_ their first fuck because, goddammit, Pete was charming once) but it seems as though Pete has. Patrick remembers Pete tugging up the barriers, carefully talking Patrick through technique and form. He remembers Pete pressing up close behind him, whispering into his ear like he was doing anything but using it as an excuse to cop a feel through their clothes. They laughed until Patrick’s stomach hurt, until his eyes streamed and his cheeks felt raw with smiling. Patrick fell in love with that Pete.

_This_ Pete just wants to show much better he is at downing both bowling pins and overpriced beer and Patrick is not remotely impressed by the display of fragile masculinity. His ball skids into the gutter once more and Pete cat-calls from the bench.

“Come on, you’re not even trying!”

“Says you,” Patrick mutters under his breath. As if the reason they’re here is for a bit of non-threatening competition, as if their marriage hasn’t taken a battering on par with the pins at the end of the alley, as if Patrick isn’t glancing at his watch and wondering how soon is too soon to just call it a night and head home. “Oh, look. You won.”

Pete grins, victorious, like not-winning was ever an option. “I did. Do I get a celebratory make out?” He reaches out to grasp Patrick by the belt loops. “C’mere, Stump-Wentz, make like Joe Elliott and pour some sugar on me.”

Patrick steps back, alarmed at both the suggestion and the unsolicited Def Leppard reference. “Oh. Like. Maybe later? There’s — We’re in public.”

It’s not normal, is it, to feel panicked when your spouse wants to kiss you?

Pete’s got crow’s feet instead of eyeliner this time around. There are lines around his brow, his mouth, that pop when he frowns and that’s okay, because Patrick has them, too. Laughter lines, allegedly, although Patrick doesn’t feel like he’s done much laughing in the past four years or so. It’s clear that Pete is thinking _you kissed me last time._ It’s obvious he’s struggling not to say _I pushed you up against that arcade machine right there, and maybe it was Dance Party instead of Forza and maybe the carpet was stickier and we were younger but you let me and you kissed me back and you loved me_.

“I’m your husband,” Pete says, very quietly, his eyes on the pale divot where Patrick’s wedding ring once sat, like their marriage is a legally binding contract that entitles him to touch when he wants to.

Actually, Patrick supposes, it probably is.

Patrick has been trying so hard to hold everything together. He’s been suspended, the mosquito in amber. He’s filled with something dangerous and dark just waiting for the wrong person to attempt to extract it. There is, apparently, so much ugly waiting inside of him, so much pain he wants to inflict on the idiot who splits him open carelessly. Pete is still staring at him, hands still half-outstretched like he thinks Patrick will give in and step back between them just because it’s what _Pete_ wants. He bites his lip and takes a very deep breath and promises himself that the moment isn’t now.

“It’s getting late,” he says instead, gesturing to his watch. It’s barely 10:30, but that _is_ late for a man with small children who believe that sleeping past 6am is a sign of weak moral fibre.  “I — Avery wakes up pretty early.”

Pete nods. Then he says, “I don’t feel like we’ve talked that much. Was this how you imagined it was going to be? I thought it would be… different, I guess. I thought we’d talk.”

Patrick is unlacing his shoes. Without looking up, he snaps, “Then maybe you should’ve picked a spot where we could talk, rather than one where we could listen to bowling pins and the sound of your ego expanding right alongside your score.”

“Is there much room for your indignation with your self-pity taking up all the space in your ass?” Pete snaps furiously. He shoves off his own shoes without untying the laces, crushing down the heels and kicking them to one side. “No. No, don’t say anything, I get it. This place was good enough for you when you could barely afford ramen but now, what? Not fancy enough for you? Do you want _more_ of my salary, Patrick?”

And that’s it.

“I have never,” Patrick points out, “asked for _your_ salary to fund luxuries for myself. My t-shirts are held together by baby puke stains. My sneakers have _velcro_ straps — Do you know how cheap velcro sneakers from Target _are_ , Peter? I ask you to share your salary with me and, by extension, our children, because we stood in front of our friends and family twelve years ago and we told them we intended to love, honor and _respect_ one another for richer, for poorer, asshole.”

This is probably the part where Patrick should stop. They’re beginning to attract a small crowd of interested bystanders and, honestly, this is not the sort of conversation he wants to have with the population of the Chicagoland area hanging on his every word. Instead, he finds he can no longer hold back, caught in the riptide of one his rare — but _fun_ — rants.

“Do you have any idea how selfish you are?” he asks. The question is entirely rhetorical because Pete, flushed and staring at his feet, clearly has no intention of offering an answer. “Honestly, I don’t know how much clearer I can make it for you. I can’t — I don’t know how to spell it out for you, do you need it in another language? No puedo hacer esto, Pedro. Tu m'as cassé, _Pierre_. Fuck you,” he stamps his foot, and it thumps pathetically because he’s only wearing socks and the carpet is a little sticky and damp with spilled soda, “just… fuck you.”

He is crying, which is horrifyingly embarrassing. He yanks down the cuffs of his cardigan and paws messily at his eyes, his glasses shoved up into his hair. Pete takes half an uncertain step towards him and Patrick holds up his hand. “Don’t. Just — fucking _don’t.”_

The middle-aged guy in the league shirt at the alley next to theirs looks Pete up and down. He turns to Patrick, 250 pounds of Midwest middle management knight in a polyester suit of armor with a name tag that says Mitch, and he says, “Is this punk bothering you?”

Patrick hasn’t been rescued by a bear since the nightclub bathroom incident of 2012 — an incident about which he and Will are both comrades in silence. It’s amazing the kind of scrapes a guy can get into with a bleach job, tight jeans and a propensity for accepting free drinks. He makes an inelegant, strangled sound, half a laugh, half a sob, both halves bitter and shakes his head. He looks at Pete when he answers.

“No,” he says, “he’s not bothering me at all. Not anymore.”

Then, he grabs his rental shoes and his car keys and he strides off to the front desk as fast as his unfeasibly short legs can carry him. There is every possibility Pete watches him leave. Then again, there’s every possibility he doesn’t — Patrick has no idea, because Patrick is, resolutely, not looking back. He exchanges the bowling shoes for his battered sneakers and sits at the bench breathing heavily and wondering if he’s actually pissed off enough to leave Pete to find his own way home.

There’s an equation somewhere, he decides, some mixture of fractions and percentages that would allow him to calculate the square root of his raw fury and multiply it to the power of the way Pete used to make his insides feel like melting ice cream and come up with a mathematically viable solution that makes their marriage _work_. He’s a horrible mathematician, though, and Pete is a terrible pariah because instead of staying the required ten feet away from Patrick at all times, he appears, crouched down on his heels and peering at Patrick from under his brows.

“You want me to walk home?”

They are twelve miles from ‘home’, even further from Pete’s parent’s place. Not to mention the fact that Pete has the Uber app on his phone and enough cash in his wallet to pay for a cab. Patrick shakes his head. “No. But that’s because _I’m_ a good person and not because you don’t deserve it, God knows, you don’t deserve the self-righteous martyr rights.” He takes a long, shaky breath. “And I’m still mad at you, so don’t start with the Ross Gellar bullshit.”

Pete reaches out and, unadvisedly, tweaks the shoulder of Patrick’s cardigan. Patrick resists the urge to slam his knee up into Pete’s crotch but it is a remarkably close-run thing. Pete toys with his wallet for a moment, rubbing his thumb along the edge of a couple of fifties and then he says, “Would you punch me if I handed you these and told you to buy yourself something nice?”

Patrick has no polite answer. So, he stands and walks to the car.

They drive back to the suburbs in tense silence. The air between them is filled with static, Patrick’s pulse is a sneaking, insidious gas leak. One wrong word will provide the spark that ignites the car and burns them both to the ground in a fiery ball of gasoline and antagonism. He stares at the road with his hands at 10 and 2 precisely and Pete glares out of the passenger window.

“Look,” says Pete, when they pull up just down the block from his parent’s house. Patrick has parked strategically; they don’t need to crown their evening out with your soon-to-be-ex-husband with a one night only audience made up of the Wentzs or any of their elderly neighbors. “Patrick, come on, just look at me.”

When Patrick turns his head, he reminds himself that Pete is the possessor of a pair of particularly beguiling puppy dog eyes. He reminds himself that Pete is not above manipulation and he tells himself, succinctly and repeatedly in this two-second turn of muscle and sinew, that he is not going to succumb. Pete makes this infinitely easier than he needs to because, instead of eyes, Patrick is met with lips, with teeth and Pete’s eager, inquisitive tongue against, inside of, his mouth.

It has been _so long_ since Patrick’s been kissed like this. So, he does something stupid and he ignores the whirring siren, the pulsing red lights firing warning signals around the dark depths behind his closed eyes. Instead, he lets Pete make fists of the front of his cardigan, lets him lick, interested, into his mouth and murmur to his tonsils, “Fuck, we haven’t done this in a while.”

He gives himself permission to feel good and he doesn’t want to remind himself that Pete is spectacularly talented at making him feel _bad_. Maybe — _maybe —_ if he just lets this go, if he lets Pete touch him with greedy, eager hands like he’s a debauched, red-mouthed, tousle-haired 20-year-old, then everything that’s soured up their insides might turn sweet once more. He promised Pete a shot, didn’t he? How can he say he’s fulfilling that obligation if he doesn’t offer up his body as well as his time?

Plus, like, the bowling was sweet, right? It was a nice idea, if poorly thought out and terribly executed. Pete _tried_ in ways he hasn’t tried in such a very long time and Patrick is — God, he’s so embarrassingly touch-starved that half-assed trying is better than committed indifference. “You’re so fucking...” Pete tells the corner of Patrick’s mouth, biting into his lip until it’s swollen up and blood hot, “God, look at you, you should — you should—”

Once, Patrick would’ve been hard by now. Once, Pete could get him halfway to getting off just by doing this. Right now, his dick is soft between his legs, barely plumped up, his stomach twisting uncomfortably as Pete digs a hand into the soft flesh of his side and twists the other into his hair. He’s convinced he can do this until Pete begins tugging him down with pointed little jerks of his wrist. Patrick ignores them so Pete upgrades to cupping the back of his skull in his palm, urging, pushing, shoving.

Patrick pulls back; he is so done. “Are you trying to shove me onto your dick?” he asks, dangerously conversational. In the electric hum of the streetlights, Pete avoids eye contact carefully. “Everything I’ve said, everything you’ve done, and you’re angling for a blowjob? Are you fucking serious right now?”

“I just thought…” Pete begins then trails off. He looks up and to the right and Patrick read somewhere once that this is a sign of an impending lie. He braces himself. “I mean, I was going to suck _your_ dick, afterwards. If you wanted me to.”

At this, Patrick grabs Pete by the wrist and pushes him, startled, until his palm is pressed to the very not hard, very uninterested softness under his zipper. “Does that seem like something I want?”

Pete looks as though he doesn’t understand, his mouth still swollen up and raw from kissing, his eyes glazed, his dick still inappropriately erect and obvious in his jeans. Patrick wastes no time at all in explaining it to him.

“Do you know what’s wrong with our sex life, Pete? Why I go to bed before you, or pretend I’m asleep when you follow me?” he asks as Pete slowly peels his hand from Patrick’s zipper. Pete shakes his head mutely and then opens his mouth to offer, what? Objection? Justification? Patrick continues before he can, the words, the kiss, tasting of rust and mold and broken things. “You don’t give a shit if I get off or not. You got this idea into your head that sex means penetration and you got this notion that you’re too important to be penetrated yourself and, honestly, you have deprived yourself of _so many orgasms_ by not… touching me. When was the last time you just _touched_ me?”

“I touch you!” Pete objects. “You’re never into it!”

“Two tugs on my dick and a quick rub at my asshole doesn’t count, idiot. You’re bad in bed, Pete, like… _so_ fucking terrible. And you never used to be, so not satisfying me is a conscious decision you’ve made at some point.”

“You get off, don’t you?”

“Honestly, no, you haven’t made me come in _months.”_

“I don’t understand,” says Pete, very small, like this is the worst thing to have happened to him in the past couple weeks. Like being kicked out of the house where his kids live, relegated to the Star Wars comforter on his childhood bed, all of that is nothing compared to hearing that he doesn’t satisfy his fat, plain, boring husband in bed. “You — You used to love—”

“You used to care,” Patrick shrugs, like he can roll the words away with the movement of his shoulders. “You used to take your time and it used to be _so good_ and then, after Harper was born, you stopped trying. I think I deserve good sex, I really do. And you can’t provide it.”

They sit in silence. The bulge at Pete’s crotch, the rigid evidence of his eagerness to resolve everything with his come spilled down Patrick’s throat, between his thighs, into his body, recedes rapidly. Once more, Patrick stares at the road and Pete looks out of the window and then, without another word, he opens the door and climbs out.

“I’m...” he starts and then pauses, staring down at his shoes, he continues quietly, “I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

There are tears at the back of Patrick’s throat, full and taut with his sadness. He swallows heavily and mutters at the steering wheel. “I do, and I don’t know how you can fix it,” he mutters. “I think I’m done for tonight. I’m tired.”

Pete digs his fingers into the window frame until his nail beds throb white under pink. They share a curious moment of watching this happen together; possibly, Patrick thinks, the first shared thought they’ve had in _years_. Slowly, Pete uncurls his hand. He steps back away from the car and glances up the street, towards his parent’s house. When he looks back his eyes are wide and drowning in hesitation.

Patrick sighs. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Pete says. He looks as though he might walk away but then he pauses, faltering a little over the unfamiliar shape of the words in his mouth. “I… I’m sorry.”

Patrick drives away. It was not a good first date, on the scale with which first dates can be empirically recorded and rated. It’s only when he’s a couple of blocks away, safely blocked from view by intersections and traffic signals that he mutters under his breath.

“So am I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Tumblr [here!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sn1tchesandtalkers)
> 
> Coming up next week... Pete has a lot to think about if he wants date number two to go better than his disastrous first attempt. 
> 
> Have an awesome week!


	6. Chapter 6

Okay, so far, the Ten Date Plan isn’t working out quite as brilliantly as Pete assumed it might. The good news is that he’s a professional journalist; his very particular set of skills includes an ability to think on his feet, to adapt to change and ensure that the deadline is met every time. He knows this is the case because it’s written in calibri font on a copy of his resumé stored away in a digital file in the cavernous folder on the Tribune servers labeled ‘Human Resources’.

Clearly, the problem is not with him. He’s handsome, charming, a fantastic provider and, with the rose-tinted glasses of hindsight firmly in place, an effective and adaptive father in challenging circumstances. When was the last time _Patrick_ took the kids on a cross-town sightseeing tour on their way to school? _That_ was a life lesson, a learning exercise, and the kind of thing the kids will look back on fondly when they’re richly nuanced, impossibly capable adults.

_Patrick_ just loads them into the minivan — _in which the car seats actually fit_ — and calls it a day. The minivan that, Pete distantly recalls, has entertainment screens in the headrests and enough crumbs between the seats to nutritionally sustain the kids and a wide selection of their friends and classmates for a cross-country roadtrip. Pete is certain that all of this makes _him_ the superior parent.

Anyway, if Pete is the personification of Good Husband Material and, honestly, the reflection in his dark computer screen tells him that he absolutely _is_ , then clearly the problem lies with Patrick and his inability to appreciate Pete’s particular brand of awesome. He’s decided not to dwell on the whole bad in bed… _thing_. He has a long list of satisfied customers dating back into the 1990s, a lengthy roster of tried and tested carnal tricks up his sleeve that have never failed to impress. Scientific data is scientific data and one bad review is hardly enough to pull down his average.

So  _maybe_ he laid in bed the whole night recounting every sexual encounter they’ve had for the past year or so instead of doing something productive, like sleeping. It was a depressingly quick playthrough because, he’s pretty sure, they’ve only had sex about six times since Avery was born. (This is if Pete includes handjobs. If he removes them, the number plummets drastically. If he sticks to penetration only, the number of times is _once_.) If, in retrospect, Patrick seemed a little quiet during those encounters, a little on edge, a little too eager to keep the lights off and the covers yanked up to his chin then, again, Pete’s not sure how that could possibly be his problem. He provided the dick — and it’s a… he’s not bragging or anything, but it’s a _decent_ dick — all Patrick had to do was participate. God knows, Patrick should be _glad_ to participate.

“Got the copy for you.”

Pete jumps and knocks his mouse, the screen springing back to life and demanding his password like a nasty little tattle-tale. Mikey — reporter, handsome, _interesting_ — leans against his desk and happily chooses not to comment on the fact that this means Pete has been staring at a blank screen for at least ten minutes. Fat-fingered, Pete fumbles with his password, locking himself out once, twice, nearly a third time and a call to IT but, mercifully, he manages and his email springs to life in front of him.

Right now, Pete should comment on the email from Mikey, right at the top of his inbox.

Pete says, “How often do you and your wife have sex?”

Mikey looks both disconcerted and confused, which is an adorable look for him.

“Is this… part of my job?” he asks warily, adjusting his tie. “Some kind of… article research?”

Pete stops staring at stupid, handsome Mikey and instead starts staring at stupid, handsome Patrick via the medium of the framed family photograph on his desk. They hired a professional photographer  just after Harper was born. Now, the five of them smile from his desk in bright shirts and no shoes. This was a different breed of husband; one who went to yoga three times a week, who wore the same size jeans as Pete and, God, used to ride him through the fucking mattress on a regular basis. Then, Patrick decided to bury himself in the frozen desserts section of Whole Foods and start ignoring his gym membership.

Anyway.

“Technically, no. I’m just… personally curious. But it might make an interesting thought piece, don’t you think?”

Mikey looks no less bewildered. “I’m not sure I _personally_ have to share that information with you.”

“Right,” Pete nods carefully. “But, like, once every… Two monnn—” Mikey smirks. Pete begins adjusting the parameters of his data collection. “Two weeeee—” Mikey makes a hand gesture that suggests Pete should round it down, “... _days?_ Once every two _days?_ Are you fucking _kidding_ me, right now?”

“More like every day, unless we’re busy,” Mikey says and examines his very shiny shoes. Pete’s shoes look like he found his way to work along the shore of the lake.

Pete stares very hard at Patrick-in-the-photograph. Patrick’s smile seems less amused now. He looks like he’s pissed off that Pete is discussing the details of their sex life with someone he’s only met in passing. Pete lets out a long breath and remains thankful that he can no longer see himself in the computer screen. He suspects the expression on his face is as jealous as it is unattractive.

“Holy shit,” he says.

“I mean,” Mikey shrugs, as though he hasn’t just dropped a nuclear warhead directly into the center of Pete’s morning and, by extension, rocked the foundations of What Pete Wentz Believes About Married Sex, “we don’t have kids and you have like… many. You have _many_ kids. Way more kids than most normal people want to be responsible for.”

Instead of replying right away, Pete is dwelling on an incident not too long ago in which he purred into Patrick’s ear _What’s your favorite position in bed?_ as he packed up lunches for the kids. Patrick pondered this for a moment before he said, _The one with an extra pillow between my knees when I sleep on my side, it really helps with my back._ It was not, Pete thinks, a particularly _sexy_ response.

“Yeah, ton of kids,” he agrees absently. Is _that_ it? The center of this virtuous Hellraiser puzzle box contains nothing more than a photograph of his kids and a note that says _better luck next time, blue balls._ “I mean… I don’t feel like they affect my desire to… _desire_ , I guess. I still want to — You know?”

“Well, yeah,” Mikey scratches the back of his head and shrugs like the answer is obvious, “but you’re _here_ , in the office, right?”

Pete’s head jerks up so fast he risks whiplash. Hearing that is something like drifting in and out of a whispered conversation and catching his name towards the end. _I’m here_ , he thinks desperately, _and Patrick isn’t_. There’s definite significance in there but pinning it down is like looking for a pebble at the bottom of the lake; the harder he searches, the more mud and murk he stirs up until it’s impossible to see anything beneath the surface _at all_.

He opens his mouth to interrogate Mikey — who he suspects might be a relationship guru — and gets as far as “Wait, what do you—” before he’s cut off from the doorway.

“The hell are you homos talking about?”

Internally, Pete sighs.

Alright, so Pete is not at the top of the tree when it comes to office hierarchy. Pete is painfully _far_ from the top of the tree, although it pains him to admit it because he quite likes telling himself he’s sort of a big deal. He’s middle branches at best, and there are many metaphorical dicks to suck and toes to trample all over if he ever wants to get significantly higher. Unfortunately for him, and to stretch the tree analogy as far as he possibly can before it snaps like a figurative bough, the person on the branch above him is Bradley ‘Call Me Butch’ Walker.

And Butch Walker is an _ass._

“Pete’s talking about running a thought piece on sex after marriage,” Mikey says, sliding onto the edge of Pete’s desk. This conversation would be so much more productive if Mikey’s pert little ass wasn’t six inches from Pete’s husband and children’s smiling faces. Pete is awfully close to crossing the streams. “Who’s getting it, who’s not, that sort of thing.”

Butch grimaces. “Is this fucking _Cosmo?_ ”

Pete shakes his head; it is incontrovertibly clear that the newsfloor is _nothing_ like Cosmo. Their floor is dominated by alpha males flexing their egos and swinging their dicks. Pete suspects the bathrooms at Cosmo probably smell nicer.

“No, it was just… I don’t know, just passing interest, I guess,” Pete struggles wildly for reasoning that will not lead Butch to the obvious and humiliating conclusion. “Everyone’s into shit like that these days, we’ve got to branch out, stay relevant. Even if we bury it with the online content, it’s something for chicks to read and if it’s in the Tribune, they don’t even have to pretend to be embarrassed about it.”

Butch leers. It’s very, very obvious that he doesn’t believe Pete at all.

“The wifey not putting out, Petey-Pie, that it?” Butch, it seems, is a sniper using insults for ammunition. “I thought gay guys were like, fucking _insatiable_ or something. I figured getting your dick sucked on the regular by someone who knows their way around it was the trade-off for taking it up the ass?”

Pete lifts one shoulder and pretends his computer is extremely interesting. “You know how it is, Bradley, he can’t keep up.” He taps a few times on his keyboard to demonstrate how busy he is.

“Whatever.” Butch is not only grinning but attracting a crowd of interested reporters; Pete wonders how hard he’d have to football tackle him to send him crashing through the window behind him and onto the city streets below. “Can’t keep his dick hard, is that it? Damn, do fat dudes fuck like fat chicks? Because fat chicks are the fucking best, so… eager to please. Desperate to have something in their mouth, am I right? They’re a lot like scooters, though — fun to ride, but you wouldn’t want your friends to see, know what I mean?”

It turns out that Pete doesn’t enjoy hearing these things about Patrick from someone else.

Mikey is laughing. It is impossible to tell if he is genuinely amused or silently wishing Butch would fuck off. Pete hopes his own smile is half as convincing. In the hope that Butch, like a tyrannosaurus, has vision that is based on movement, Pete sits very still and fixes his gaze on a promotional email from Dominos like it’s the most interesting thing he’s seen in his life. Unfortunately, Butch does not have jurassic era optical impairments but he _does_ have the sense of humor of a Republican dinosaur circa 1976 and demonstrates this by launching into a pornographic representation of, Pete _thinks_ , anal fingering.

It’s that or he’s demonstrating how he gets the last stick of gum from the back of the glove compartment. Pete feels an immense wave of pity for both Butch’s wife and, by extension, any other woman who has been unlucky enough to have sex with him.

“Oh yeah, baby, that’s it,” he moans, eyes rolled back as his hips rock in time with his wrist. “Yeah, right there, fuck me with your big gay dick. Is that how you do it, Wentz? Which one of you is the chick and who’s the dude?”

Idly, Pete thinks that Butch’s wristwork could use a little focus but suspects that pointing that out to his direct superior _probably_ won’t help him secure that corner office. There’s a sour, curdled milk feeling in the pit of Pete’s gut as a thought creeps in: _two tugs on my dick and a quick rub at my asshole_. Oh God. No. No, this _can’t_ be what Patrick imagines when he thinks about Pete fucking him.

Pete’s mouth opens and promptly runs away with him: “Go fuck yourself, you homophobic prick.”

The office falls immediately and painfully silent. Only the voices, though. There’s still a low humming throb that could be the heating system, or the fan on Pete’s computer, or his pulse rich and ripe in his ears. Pete carries in his chest a heavy fury that he sinks into the clamp of his teeth to his bottom lip; he can’t let himself breathe another word, he can’t show weakness. This office is a wolf pack and they circle, eyes bright with vicious intent, waiting for the first sign of an exposed jugular to pounce and tear the weak one apart.

Butch smiles, wide and predatory and not at all embarrassed, and when he speaks his voice is bright with cruel amusement, “Ooh, did I touch a nerve there, buddy? Why so serious — you on your period?”

In another moment, Pete might appreciate the irony of hearing his own words echoed back at him by someone he’s supposed to respect. There’s a beautiful, poetic symmetry to it, he’s sure. Of course, it’s different for _him_ ; he’s currently being belittled in front of his whole team. This is not light hearted banter between spouses when one of them — the lazy one — hasn’t moved his ass from the couch all day. There are, like, _rights_ and _legal issues_ associated with making fun of someone for their sexuality in the workplace. This is _serious._ This is the kind of thing he could feasibly take to a _lawyer_.

(That his inevitable divorce will _also_ involve a lawyer — probably Pete’s own _father_ — is, he feels, a moot point he can examine later.)

Every eye in the office is trained on them, unmoving, sharks waiting for the iron-bright tang of blood in the water. This wouldn’t be the first time two editors have come to blows on the newsfloor. It wouldn’t even be the first time this _month_. There’s no professional or personal reason that Pete shouldn’t stand up, raise his fists and walk away from this with blood on his teeth and his knuckles. A pointless, peacock display of toxic masculinity for the amusement of the reporters watching them eagerly, silently placing bets on who’s more likely to walk away with a black eye: the fifty-something or the faggot.

Fact: Pete knows what they call him behind his back. He’s invited them into his home for poker nights, barbecues, been polite to their pedestrian, boring wives whilst they’re equally courteous to his husband and pretended they’re friends. None of that matters because Pete will _always_ be The Other. They will _always_ say he got his job due to equal rights and representation figures at the Tribune. He will never stop attempting to prove them wrong.

He uncoils his fists, one finger at a time, and takes a deep, calming breath. Today will not be the day he takes a swing at Chicago’s answer to Bernard Manning. He will not grant him the satisfaction of a bloody nose or, worse, give him the opening to make a ‘punches like a girl’ joke.

He smiles, tight and painful and vicious, and says, “Maybe I am, want to help me deal with the cramps?”

It works; the news team lose interest and turn back to their computers, the hum of background conversation, phone calls and keys rattling with tomorrow’s press pieces filling the space. Pete can no longer hear his pulse, but he thinks he can feel it in the roots of his teeth. He keeps smiling.

“So fucking gay,” Butch mutters. “ _So_ fucking _gay.”_

He turns away and takes the malice with him. Pete is a pliant dog on its back with its throat bared, tail tucked between his legs. For today, he’s submissive, but he’s allowed to get back up. This is life in this toxic stew of heterosexual maleness that stinks so badly he swears he can smell it on his shirts some days.

“See you at soccer?” Pete calls to Butch’s back. He’s already planning on stepping on his leg with his cleats.

“You know it!”

His life outside of Patrick, away from the safety of their mutual friends who don’t see them as some kind of freak show, has never looked less appealing. For the first time in two weeks, the first time since Patrick handed him his overnight bag and told him to get the fuck out of the house, Pete thinks he might be beginning to panic. In lieu of any constructive output for this newfound and unwelcome sensation of prickling anxiety that stirs the hair at the nape of his neck, he turns to google.

If he can’t win Patrick back with nostalgia, he’ll do it with cash.

***

Patrick has never been a fan of overblown romantic gestures.

There’s nothing more excruciating than performative public demonstrations of affection when, like, pizza and a movie on the couch would woo him just as well. So, he admits to feeling a hint of trepidation when Pete texts him – a clear week after their disastrous first date and just as long since he’s acknowledged either Patrick or the kids – and tells him to dress up and prepare to be amazed.

The last time Pete told him to brace himself for a date, they both wound up spending the night in a holding cell for trespassing on private land. This was only because no one was around to make the public indecency charge stick. It’s not an experience Patrick is eager to repeat in his thirties.

Still, he showers and shaves, puts on a suit that _almost_ fits — if he doesn’t button the jacket — and wears a tie _and_ cologne. He combs his hair and digs out the glasses that Avery _hasn’t_ tossed across the hardwood floor so many times that they’re held together by glue and good will. By his current standards this is a Big Deal.

(For reference, Patrick’s day to day dress code lingers somewhere between _comfortable_ and _nightwear_. He’s admitting nothing out loud but he has questioned on more than one occasion, if there’s really any difference between pajamas and sweatpants. This is not due to an empty checking account but rather a strong and lingering aversion to spending any more time in front of a changing room mirror than is absolutely necessary. Plus, his blog revolves around pictures of his perfectly photogenic kids in his beautifully put together home. No one cares what the dude behind the camera looks like.)

“Daddy,” says Caitlyn, sitting on his bed — their bed, Pete’s bed — with her reading practise and her wide brown eyes. “I need to talk to you.”

“Of course, sweetie, what’s bothering you,” he asks, adjusting his cufflinks whilst wondering if cufflinks are too much.

“It’s about dad,” she says.

“Oh?” he mutters absently. “Well, I think he’s going to spend some time with you this week, so…”

“I want you to know, if he’s making you unhappy, you don’t have to take him back.”

Patrick pauses. It feels — uncomfortable, to hear his daughter acknowledge the thing he’s been coaching himself on over and over again. He looks at her in the mirror and says, “I — What?”

“You and dad,” she continues earnestly. “I mean, I love him and everything, but if you don’t? That’s cool. Well, it’s not _cool_ , but — I don’t… You shouldn’t be sad to make him happy.”

There is a slippery, greasy eel in Patrick’s guts. This is not the conversation he imagined having with an 11-year-old who can, apparently, see the wood amongst the trees while Patrick gropes, half-blind. He’s trying _so hard_ to hold it all together, to love these kids enough for two parents. He collapses onto the edge of the bed, pulls her close and kisses the curls on the top of her head.

“Caitlyn,” he begins, very seriously, because he owes her his utmost sincerity, “I would do _anything_ to make you guys happy. But even _I_ know that taking your dad back if I don’t really want him here wouldn’t make _anyone_ happy. I can’t make you any guarantees, that’s how it is to be a grown up, but I can promise you that I would never do _anything_ that would risk your happiness. Okay?”

The problem is — and it’s taken every ounce of self-restraint that Patrick has not to rant about this on his blog — no one really cares about the parent left behind to deal with the emotional fallout of a broken home. Pretending that everything is okay is draining every ounce of emotional resilience Patrick has. He _hurts_ down to his marrow every time Noah asks when dad is coming home. They say time's supposed to heal all wounds and Patrick is willing the days away.

“I’m fine,” he reassures her, when she doesn’t speak. “I’m fine, and we’re fine and everything is going to carry on being absolutely fine, no matter what happens. Okay?”

Beside him, Caitlyn sighs, “Okay, but just… be careful.” She reaches over and tweaks his tie, brushes her fingers through his hair and pats it into place. “Oh, and dad? You look, like, _super_ handsome.”

The compliment is sweet but Patrick can see the tubby, awkward man in the mirror. He says thank you anyway. She doesn’t need to inherit his hangups. He’s so tired of feeling unlovable.

So, when Patrick trips his way across the restaurant thirty minutes later and collapses into the chair opposite Pete’s? When Pete looks at him from those wide brown eyes with his full mouth tipped up at the corners like Patrick is Pogo the fucking clown with his suit that doesn’t fit and his big, red face? Patrick is _not_ in the fucking mood to humor him.

“What?” he snaps. “What are you laughing at?”

To the untrained eye of a casual onlooker this might seem a little harsh but, reminder, Patrick has seen neither hide nor hair of this man with whom he shares a home loan, a checking account and a fucking _name,_ for the better part of a week, _again._ The older kids are starting to ask questions like _Is dad dead?_ and _Did you murder him last week and dump him in the lake?_ Patrick thinks he’s earned this.

“I’m not laughing,” says Pete defensively. “You look… _good_. That’s all. I’m not used to you making an—”

Patrick shoots him a look so withering that Pete snaps his mouth shut with an audible _click_ of his teeth. It is imperative for the safety of their already-floundering marriage and the continued enjoyment of the diners around them that Pete does not finish that sentence.

“So,” Pete tries again gamely. “How are you?”

_“Great,”_ Patrick says, the sarcasm a living thing writhing on the table between them. “Never better. My husband moved out two weeks ago and he’s seen his children precisely twice since then. I’d worry about the effect it’s having on them but, to be honest, I feel like fifty-percent of them haven’t actually noticed he’s missing.” He grabs a bread roll from the basket on the table and tears into it with visceral savagery; Pete looks visibly alarmed and leans back in his seat. “You?”

From this position, Patrick swears he can see the cogs slowly rotating in Pete’s head, his internal rolodex cycling through index cards until he reaches ‘K is for Kids’ and his eyes widen with theatrical slowness. He opens his mouth, his damp pink tongue resting on his teeth as he frantically flicks his gaze left and right and back again and then he says, very softly, “Oh. About that.”

“Yes,” Patrick repeats around a mouthful of carbohydrates he probably shouldn’t be eating, “about _that.”_

“The thing is,” Pete begins cautiously, reaching for a roll as though they can bond over baked goods, “you seem to have the whole parenting... _thing?_ Sort of… cornered? Plus, you know, you sort of… kicked me out? Which makes me feel like I probably shouldn’t impose?”

If there was any available right now, Patrick would be pouring anti-anxiety medication into his mouth and crunching it up dry with the bread, _take one per day_ be damned. Like Joey Ramone, he wants to be sedated and, so help him, he is perilously close to lobotomizing himself with the butter knife. It seems that Pete is an unending carousel of _doesn’t get it_ , a blazing sun of unconcerned apathy, unaware of the planets orbiting him, dependent on him. Also, Patrick may murder him if he doesn’t stop talking in questions. He will not talk his way out of this with High Rise Terminal.

“Peter,” Patrick enunciates every syllable with as much clarity as he can muster, leaning forward earnestly into his husband’s space, “they are your _children_. For the love of — _Imposition_ is not a stage that we’re at! You’re not a maiden aunt angling for an invitation to thanksgiving dinner! You’re their _dad_. You should want to be around them all the time, I can’t — I don’t _understand_ why you don’t want to be around them all the time.”

Patrick can’t comprehend a reality in which he doesn’t see his children for over a week and is _okay_ with it. He could do without the repeated reminders that Pete can and does function without them without turning a hair. _Fuck,_ he wants to go home.

“I do,” Pete insists, “but you’re there being super dad and there's no — there’s no place for me to fit in anymore! They don’t need _me_ because they only want _you!”_

There’s an uncomfortable possibility that this is true, that somehow, Patrick hauled up the portcullis behind him and the kids and left Pete outside. Still, it’s not like Pete has made any particular effort to breach the gates.

“And whose fault is that, exactly?” he snaps.

“Look, I’m trying my best here, okay?” Pete rakes a hand through his hair, which draws attention to the gray peppering his undercut. “I’ve never been on the brink of a fucking divorce before so excuse me if I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do!”

Patrick is _thisfuckingclose_ to slamming his head into his bread plate. “You could try listening to the things I’ve been saying to you for _years_ , maybe spending a little time with your kids as an actual parent rather than staggering through every interaction with them like it’s some kind of medieval torture.”

“Well, I’m _sorry_ I don’t match up to your social media-friendly, Martha Stewart without the felony, homemaker skills,” Pete snaps. “Could you at least humor me and pretend to enjoy my company for twenty minutes? We can go back to fighting as soon as we’re done with the soup.”

As he collapses back into his seat and snatches the wine list from the table, Patrick is struck suddenly by how tired Pete looks right now. There are dark shadows under his eyes, his shirt collar a little loose around his throat; from poor laundry or poor eating remains unclear. Within Patrick’s chest, something uncurls and stretches lazily, that same cold, dread feeling that seeps through him when one of the kids gets sick. It is, Patrick thinks, extremely inconvenient that he still _cares_ about this idiot. He is imbued with the urge to reach across the table and swipe a hand through Pete’s hair, to tweak at the badly tied knot of his tie. He can’t do either of those things, so instead he speaks sharply, like Pete is a particularly annoying brand of yappy lapdog.

“I don’t know why I’m even here.”

It’s an inauspicious launching point for their night of conversation and reconciliation and, across three feet of white linen and an improbable number of knives and forks for the amount of food coming out of the kitchen, Pete raises his eyebrows. Then, he says, “Well, I thought maybe you’d want to start by ordering something to drink and we could take it from there. Unless you meant in a more cosmic sense, in which case I’m happy to debate quantum theory, if you think it’ll help.”

He is trying to be charming, his smile easy and relaxed as he lounges into his seat, louche and sexy, and goes back to consulting the wine list. Patrick blurts out, “I don’t know why you make me so angry. Just looking at you is enough to make me want to start punching walls.”

“Is that a step up from you wanting to punch me?” Pete asks lightly. It’s an ill-advised joke.

“None of this is funny,” Patrick tells him. The sommelier approaches — because of course Pete booked a restaurant that requires an entirely separate member of staff to dispense its wine — and he bites his lip and his tongue.

They drink barolo in uncomfortable silence, which is a shame as Patrick wants to comment that it’s fucking _fantastic_. Their entreé arrives and they eat tiny portions of fussy, over-sauced food without speaking. The table is cleared and the quiet echoes on. It’s slipped from merely awkward and into competitive, an unspoken contest of who will cave first. Finally, as the second bottle of wine arrives along with their main course, Pete breaks.

“You know,” he says, “we were good together, once.”

Patrick considers his answer over a mouthful of duck. Last night, Avery reacted so violently to spinach casserole that her diaper — along with Patrick’s tears — overflowed in the middle of the night. He woke Harper in his quest for clean sheets. Neither one of them would go back to sleep in their own beds. They curled in his bed and spent the rest of the so-called silent watches of the night giggle and poking one another, and him, in the face. He’s running on two hours sleep and unreasonable, _unfeasible_ , quantities of caffeine and energy pills that were licensed by no pharmacist ever. Right now, he does not need to walk down memory lane. Right now, he needs someone to take over and tell him, after eleven goddamn _years_ , that tonight, just tonight, he can _sleep._

Of course, Patrick knows that’s not going to happen. Tonight, Pete will go back to his mom’s place and Patrick will go back to their not-so-marital home and he’ll deal with every night-feed and nightmare while Pete sleeps the quiet sleep of the unencumbered. It is so, so unfair.

He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe once. There’s kind of a lot of toxic water under that particular bridge right now.”

“Do you think—” Pete starts, bites it off and then starts again. “Do you think maybe we could get back to that? I mean, you did love me once.”

_I still love you now,_ Patrick thinks, _I don’t want to, but I do and I can’t help it and it terrifies me._

“Do you love me?” he asks. The prospect of Pete answering is terrifying.

Pete looks both affronted and baffled. “What? Like — you even need to ask?” Patrick glares at him, it is a look, he hopes, that says he absolutely does. “Of _course_ I love you!”

“Then why don’t I feel it anymore?” he whispers.

“Because — we’ve just,” Pete pauses and thinks and furrows his brow, “we’ve just lost sight of _us_. What we need is to just… get back to us.”

Patrick massages his temples. “It’s not just about me and you anymore,” he sighs wearily. “We have _kids_ and you don’t seem to give a shit about them. They were hardly accidental pregnancies, you _asked_ for those kids, you _wanted_ them and we paid an insane amount of money to get them. When we brought them home you loved them _so much_. I need — What the hell changed?”

There’s an ache in his chest like glass; brilliantly bright and shining but sharp at the edges, slicing through his veins until the hurt aches through him. He takes a defiant mouthful of his wine and dares Pete to explain himself.

“I _do_ want the kids!” Pete snaps. “I always wanted the kids, I used to drive Caitlyn and Noah around for hours when they were babies and—”

“And now you haven’t changed a single one of Avery’s diapers.” Patrick wipes his mouth on his napkin and tosses it down onto the table between them. “Don’t tell me about the things you used to do, they don’t carry forward, this isn’t a greatest hits album of fatherhood. Tell me one thing you’ve done for them recently?”

“Look, just because I can’t get to Caitlyn’s dance recitals or Noah’s soccer games doesn’t mean—”

“Karate and ballet,” Patrick snaps. Pete looks bewildered, then pissed off.

“Okay, fine, whatever, he does karate.”

“No,” Patrick says, very carefully, because he doesn’t trust himself to say too much. “ _Caitlyn_ does karate. Noah does ballet.”

“Ballet?” Pete repeats acerbically. “Isn’t that a little—”

Patrick’s head snaps up. “Don’t you _dare_ finish that sentence. Don’t you goddamn _dare.”_

There is a tension headache pooling in the base of Patrick’s skull. He decides, at this point, to take advantage of the analgesic properties of alcohol and downs the wine in his glass.

“So I don’t know every little thing about them,” Pete mutters. “I’m at work, I don’t always—”

“What belt is Caitlyn?” Patrick asks lightly. Pete doesn’t answer. “What grade is Noah? Tell me the name of Harper’s daycare teacher. How many ounces of formula does Avery have in her nighttime bottle?” Pete steeples his hands and rests his forehead against them lightly, it’s clear he doesn’t know. It’s a sucker punch, a one-two blow to the ribs as Patrick reels back in his seat. “Jesus Christ. I’d worked out that you’re a shitty husband but — Fuck, I didn’t realize you’re an _awful_ father, too.”

This is all going swimmingly. Patrick’s guts cramp for a moment, spinning in freefall and waiting, waiting, waiting to hit the ground. They glare at one another. Patrick wants to extend his middle finger and smear it into Pete’s face until he performs a passable impersonation of someone who understands and appreciates the damage he’s caused. He wants Pete to _understand_.

Pete says, “You don’t want to be a single father,” because Pete is an idiot.

“I already _am_ a single father,” Patrick barks. “I’ve been a single father since Harper was born. If this is your plan, to wear me down and scare me and belittle me for ten dates until I give in and take you back because I can’t do any better—”

“That’s not my plan,” Pete says, shakily though. Patrick suspects it absolutely _was_ his plan. “Listen, we were so much more than lovers at one point. You were my best friend, but then the kids took over and — I _get_ that, honestly I do. But you never came back to me, not really. When did you decide to shut me out?”

Patrick considers his answer over a sip from his glass. “Honestly? I didn’t mean to. You walked away half a step at a time and I left the door propped open for you for _so long_ because I figured you’d always come back. It took a broken washing machine for me to realize your home wasn’t with me anymore, regardless of the address you have on your driver’s licence.”

“This is fucking stupid,” Pete opines. “Just let me come home, we can’t figure things out from different houses. I’ll _try_ , I swear I will.”

They are so far from _trying_ that it’s laughable. They left behind _trying_ years ago.

On the table between them, Patrick’s phone rings, an incoming call from the babysitter. There’s a sudden drop of panic in his gut, his heart accelerating as the world slows down. He’s imagining dead kids, injured kids, broken bones and flashing blue lights.

“Ignore it,” Pete says. “Patrick, _please.”_

Patrick elects not to reply, swiping accept and taking the call. “Hello?”

“Mr Stump-Wentz?” the babysitter says, reassuringly calm and capable. “I’m so sorry to disturb you but Avery is—”

_Meningitis_ , he thinks, bound to be. “Oh God, is she—” Dead? Dying? Coated entirely in an unidentified and life-threatening rash?

“She’s okay,” she reassures him quickly. Happily, Patrick’s heart slows from a flat gallop to a throbbing hum. “Don’t panic. It’s just she’s running a fever and she seems so unhappy. I thought I should let you know, just in case you wanted to come back and check on her.”

“Yes,” Patrick says, already fumbling to his feet. Across the table, Pete mouths ‘are you serious?’ — Patrick is deadly serious. “Of course, I — I’ll be right back. Like, give me thirty minutes.”

“There’s really no rush, Mr Stump.” He can hear Avery grizzling in the background, the low, long whimper of a child in pain. It twists his gut with paternal guilt. “It’s fine.”

“No, I’m coming, it’s okay, I’ll be there soon. Bye.”

He hangs up and slips the phone back into his pocket. Pete blinks up at him. “Where are you going?”

“Avery is sick, I need to go home.”

“For God’s sake, Patrick,” Pete snaps, “this is our fucking _marriage_ on the line here, just get the babysitter to give her some Feverall and sit back down.”

Pete would do as well to ask Patrick to walk on water. To ask him to pull down the moon from the sky. There is no task he can think of that would be more impossible than ignoring their infant daughter when she’s sick. “She’s a _baby_ , she _needs_ me. What part of that don’t you understand?”

_“I_ need you!” Pete bleats. When it becomes apparent that pleading won’t work, he huffs. “You know what? _This_ is why our marriage is in trouble. You’re always putting me at the bottom of the fucking list, behind your blog, behind your friends, behind your goddamn _baby.”_

It’s a common tactic of the pulp fiction author to describe the moment all of the air leaves the room. This is not metaphorical. It turns out, as Patrick stares at Pete across the table, his hands loose at his sides and his lungs devoid entirely, that it is absolutely physically possible. Patrick can't breathe. There is nothing in the room for him to draw into his lungs beyond burning disbelief. His hands are shaking, his lip trembling and his eyes stinging behind his glasses. This is so, so much worse than he ever imagined it could be, even though Pete is doing nothing more than voicing the thought Patrick’s had every day since Avery was born.

Probably, he should shout. Probably, he should grab Pete’s drink and toss it into his face. Probably, he should take a moment to explain to Pete how insanely, irrevocably _fucked_ their relationship is and how beautifully he’s demonstrated that in a single sentence.

That will have to wait for a time when he doesn’t have a sick child to attend to.

Quietly, he says, “ _Our_ baby, Pete. She’s _our_ baby.”

“I know that,” Pete blusters, “I didn’t mean it like that. It was just a slip. Seriously, just sit down.”

Patrick doesn’t hear what else Pete has to say, because Patrick is already pushing his way back through the restaurant, collecting his coat from the maître d' and stumbling out into the night in search of a cab. He thinks, as he collapses into a taxi, that he sees Pete through the window, staring down at the tablecloth, unmoving.

_Your baby._

If that ain’t the goddamn truth.


	7. Chapter 7

The headliner of Pete’s car matches the soft gray paintwork of Westbrook Elementary School’s roof almost exactly. He knows this because he has been staring between the two for the past thirty minutes. The reason he makes sure his gaze is fixed very firmly on one or the other is because he’s almost certain that, if he glances even casually in the direction of the nearby schoolyard, an unholy terror of PTA mothers in shiny new SUVs will bring down a reckoning of self-righteous fury upon him without hesitation.

A non-white man in a big black car parked conspicuously on the edges of school property? This is exactly the kind of thing crime statistics and local news articles are made of.

Maybe, if he’d made more of an effort to take part in the stupid bake sales, or to hand out rations of weak Kool-Aid and stale Cheetos at end-of-semester dances, then this wouldn’t feel so awkward. This is a world he isn’t part of, halls he’s never walked and staff he doesn’t know. For fuck’s sake, he doesn’t even go to parent-teacher conferences.

(“Because, _Patrick,_ it’s _parent_ -teacher, not _parents_ -teacher. Just take some notes and run them by me later, I’m sure they’re not about to tell you the kids are getting the Pulitzer.”)

He is beginning to realize that he could have made a little more effort with the kids. Sitting in the restaurant alone, finishing off the bottle of wine, he forced himself to recap every half-forgotten conversation of the past few weeks, months, years. Patrick is right. He doesn’t know shit about his children. Wouldn’t have the first clue about how to conduct their day to day lives if Patrick ran away and joined Cirque du Soleil. Didn’t care, until roughly 72 hours ago.

This dangerous carousel of self-blame cranks around in a wobbling, dizzying circle until Pete is forced to confront a further truth: He probably should have made more effort with _Patrick._ Unfortunately, by acknowledging this, Pete has also been forced to admit to himself in the darkness of guilt-induced insomnia that he has no idea how to fix it.

“Hi,” says Caitlyn, sliding into the passenger seat. “Just so you know, if I’m not back for class, it’ll take them, like… half a minute to issue an amber alert and daddy will probably kill you.”

Before Pete can process the accuracy of that statement – or check its validity via the glorious medium of Google – the back door opens and a whirlwind wrapped up in a GAP hoodie collapses onto the seat.

“Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh _Dadman!”_

“Whoa,” Pete looks at Noah and then at Caitlyn. “I didn’t realize this was a whole family event. I didn’t ask for _you_ at the desk, you’re a non-requested child.” Noah looks devastated which makes Pete’s guts feel squirmy and uncomfortable, he rushes to correct himself. “A _good_ non-request. A surprise. A _bonus._ Uh… How much trouble am I in right now? Is this kidnap? Oh God, I’m going to be on the news and your dad is going to murder me.”

“Probably,” Caitlyn says. “He followed me out of the lunchroom. Because he’s a total _loser_ who doesn’t have any friends.”

Pete looks at Noah over the headrest. “Is that true? You have friends, right?”

It is suddenly immensely important that his son assures him he does, that he’s popular and bright and funny and all of the other kids see that, too. Pete feels it fiercely in his chest, this raw fury of injustice.

“Wakanda forever!” Noah declares dramatically instead of answering, his arms crossed over his chest. Pete boggles at him silently. “Dad,” he sighs, “you’re supposed to do it back.”

“Oh.” There is literally no way Pete is embarrassing himself by joining in with that. “I thought you did the whole… Fortnite thing? You know?”

He dabs in demonstration, because apparently that is less humiliating.

Caitlyn sighs. “He’s speaks _many_ different dialects of dweeb.”

“Whatever, _Caitlyn!_ Just because Jackson Parker told everyone he didn’t want to go out with you—”

“Shut _up_ , fetus! _Dad.”_

His children have boy problems and social issues and personalities and lives he has never before considered. Until this moment they were like collectible Star Wars figures, preserved in the plastic wrapping of their cozy, suburban house. They were something he could pull out to impress his friends but not entirely separate entities, growing and learning and waiting to break free. Pete, it seems, has a habit of caging things for himself, a selfish desire not to share them with the world unless it benefits him.

He clears his throat vaguely. “Uh… maybe you’re too young for a boyfriend, Caity. I mean, we can talk it over with daddy, but…”

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Noah points out. “Because Jackson thinks she looks like an alligator’s butthole.”

“ _You’re_ a butthole, washrag!”

Caitlyn launches herself at her little brother. It’s not unlike the monkey enclosure at Lincoln Park Zoo, which leads, in a roundabout way, to a nostalgic pang of rose-tinted wistfulness for summer afternoons in the city, walking around the enclosures with Caitlyn on his shoulders and Noah in the stroller, hand in hand with Patrick, matching cargo shorts and ice cream-flavored kisses.

There is an ominous, fleshy thump. Noah screeches.

If they continue to slap at one another through the headrests, there’s a possibility someone may lose an eye. The impromptu kidnapping of his own children from their educators is not something he wants to explain to their other father in the emergency room.

“Okay, that’s enough! Come on, knock it off!”

They don’t knock it off, because children are like that and his hand still bears a faint but noticeable impression of Harper’s teeth as a lasting reminder. Because he lacks a hosepipe to turn on them — which he _thinks_ might actually be the recommended response to fighting cats, not kids — and because they clearly have no intention of listening to him of their own volition, he formulates a swift but formidable plan. Three taps on the screen of his iPhone and a twist of the dial in the center of the sound system on the dash and the two of them fall into stunned silence.

Which is great, because the acoustics lend a certain something-something to Pete’s off-key singing.

_“I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers can’t deny, when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get sprung—”_

“Dad!” Caitlyn hisses, slamming down in her seat as though she can sink through it via the process of osmosis. “Shut up! And stop playing your — your _old person_ music!”

“What’s that?” he asks innocently. Shouts, really, to be heard over the speakers. There are kids outside who are beginning to stare. “You want me to wind down the windows so all of your friends can hear you listening to Baby Got Back in the car with your father? Is that what you want me to do?”

“If you don’t switch that off _right now,”_ Caitlyn says. “I’m calling Child Protective Services _and_ daddy _and_ grandma.”

Noah vibrates into a body pop across the backseat. “I like it!”

“Noah likes it,” Pete confirms. “Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, Cait.”

He is, visibly, _not_ a dancer, but he joins in anyway because Caitlyn looks _so much_ like Patrick when she’s outraged. Until he remembers that the lyrics get a little, well, _racy_ , and he hits the mute button. He’d rather curtail his fun than explain to Noah why Sir Mix-a-Lot takes a sharp right turn and begins talking about anacondas. Kids are smart these days, he doubts either of them would believe that formative hip-hop artists had a strong interest in herpetology.

“ _Thank you,”_ says Caitlyn emphatically. “Okay, is there, like, a _reason_ you’ve pulled us out of school or did you just want to destroy my social life?”

“You’re eleven,” he points out, “you’re still in grade school. You don’t have anything that’s even loosely similar to  a social life. You have, like, _playdates_ , at best. Anyway, I need your help.”

Caitlyn smiles at him, wide enough to show every brilliant white Wentz tooth. It is so dazzling that it’s almost possible to miss the sharp, vicious shape of it until she says, “You probably should’ve thought about that _before_ you humiliated _and_ insulted me. I’m going back to class.”

She means it, too. He hits the central lock button. “Wait! I will pay you _ten_ US dollars if you stay and help me.”

From the backseat, Noah asks, “Do I get ten dollars, too?”

“No,” Pete says, shaking his head like it’s very obvious. Which it sort of is — to him at least — because he knows he only has one ten dollar bill in his wallet. “Because _you_ didn’t threaten to run away. Your negotiation skills need improvement and this is a life lesson that you’re totally going to thank me for one day.”

“I’ll leave,” Noah threatens.

“You’re locked in,” Pete points out.

“That,” says Noah, “is totally _not_ cool.”

“I can offer you,” Pete rummages for a moment, “a granola bar and... _and_ half a bottle of room temperature iced tea.”

Noah narrows his eyes then beams. “Sold!” Pete hands over the spoils and watches him tear into them with vigor. He sprays crumbs across the upholstery that immediately wedge their way down into every conceivable crevice. “Thanks, dad, you’re the best!”

Faced with the prospect of getting one over on her younger brother, Caitlyn collapses back into the seat.

“Ten dollars?” she asks. Pete nods. This is a progression in his parenting skills which have moved from ‘wrangling cats’ to ‘bribery’ in a brilliantly short space of time. “Okay, fine. What do you need help with?”

Pete clears his throat. “I need to you tell me what to do to impress your dad. Uh, not me, your _daddy_. I know how to impress me. I’m actually, like, really easy to impress but he — is not.”

That probably covers all of the major plot points in this daytime drama so far.

“Wow,” Caitlyn manages to inject an awful lot of distaste into one syllable, spitting it out like she used to spit out strained peas. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You want to know what daddy likes?” Noah asks. “Uh, he liiikes — he likes us! He always says he does, he says we’re his favorite people in the world.”

It’s not an insult to come second best to their children, Pete realizes this — on an academic level, at least — however, he suspects he’s probably not even in Patrick’s top ten right now. He ruffles Noah’s hair and cups the smooth warmth of his cheek. He is struck, hard and right in the guts, with how long it’s been since he last _looked_ at his kids. They’re growing so fast it chokes the air from him, a broken sound slipping past his lips. He coughs instead and when he speaks his voice is low, gruff. “I know you are, buddy. But, uh — I meant something I can do _for_ daddy, you know? Something fun.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit weird that you’re asking your kids to fix this for you?” Caitlyn says, because Caitlyn is, apparently, very firmly entrenched in Team Patrick. “According to you, _I’m_ not mature enough for a boyfriend, so how do you think I’m going to help _you?”_

Pete actually suspects that Caitlyn Stump-Wentz is not only mature enough to handle any boy in her peer group, she is probably mature enough to run for president.

“Can I level with you, Caity?” he asks. It’s mostly rhetorical, but she nods anyway so he continues. “Most adults have absolutely _no idea_ what they’re doing most of the time. Seriously. We act like we have all the answers but… if you gave me a pop quiz on how to do basically _anything_ that isn’t my job at the newspaper, I can guarantee you I’d fail it spectacularly. I’m a horrible adult. I’m the fu— I’m the worst, okay? But one thing I used to be really, really awesome at was making your daddy happy and, right now, I can’t seem to work out how to do that.”

“So, what you’re saying is that daddy can do better?” Now Caitlyn is the one kicking him in the crotch with rhetoric. “You shouldn’t come back if you can’t figure out how to make him happy without asking me. I’m in _grade school_ , remember? What do I know.”

“That was mean of me, I apologize for that, but—”

“Unlock the door, dad,” she says decisively. “We’re going to be late for class.”

“But—”

“Now, dad.”

Between the seats, Noah extends his hand for a fist bump. Pete returns it solemnly, feeling too many things to really keep track of them. He croaks out weakly, “Hey, how about I pick you up from school one night this week? We can — I could take you to Moon Pie?”

“Awesome!” Noah declares and, for the first time in a long time, Pete feels like a parent, making plans with his kids and feeling that visceral tingle of excitement in the base of his spine. This is like being Noah’s age again, laid on the backseat of the car listening to his dad sing Build Me Up Buttercup.

“We’ve already been with daddy,” Caitlyn points out, but she’s wavering, Pete can feel it. He squeezes her shoulder, because she looks like she might murder him if he goes in for a hug. “But whatever, I guess. Will the babies be there?”

“Just the two of you,” Pete promises. “I swear.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll let you know if — if I’m not, you know, busy or anything.” She climbs out of the car and Noah is already spinning away towards the school entrance, his curls a blur around his face. There is something sharp and heavy in the center of Pete’s chest. He swallows around it as Caitlyn looks back over her shoulder and pauses, uncertain, the door still held open between them. “So, like, about daddy?” Pete nods eagerly. “I, uh — well, you probably know this but, like… He likes old movies, doesn’t he? Maybe — maybe you could take him to see Ghostbusters or something. He — I think he’d like that. A lot.”

She closes the door and is almost out of earshot before Pete regains control of his gross motor function, frozen in place in the driver’s seat as his heart hammers off-tune bass lines into his ribs. He fumbles to wind down the window and calls after her, her jean jacket retreating towards the front steps. “Caitlyn!” She looks back, eyebrows raised. “Thank you! And — and I love you, sweetheart. I really do.”

She smiles and turns away. Pete feels like a truly terrible father.

But, he supposes, this is an improvement on not feeling like a father at all.

***

“Oh _boooys_!”

There are three parenting truths that Patrick believes are universal. The first is that the number of children who ask for oatmeal at breakfast will be in converse correlation to the amount of milk remaining in the fridge. The second is that if he is in a hurry to leave the house, Avery will produce the kind of diaper that Satan himself would consider a bit much. The third is that nothing good ever comes of being shouted down on the front steps of the school by the chairperson of the PTA.

“Oh God,” he grumbles, “I’ve completed my civic duty. Shouldn’t I be free to drink tequila and let the baby play with bleach for the next few hours? Isn’t there an amendment that says so or do I have to petition my representative?”

“Run,” Joe hisses. “I’ll cover for you, just make a break for it. Once you’re under cover of the sycamores, you’ll be home free.”

Joe is a good friend in that he really wants what’s best for Patrick but a bad friend because he forgets the demonstration of Newton’s third law of motion that Patrick’s chest, ass and thighs provide when he accelerates beyond a gentle trot.

“That is… needlessly dramatic.” Patrick gestures to Avery, strapped to his chest. “Have you even _heard_ of Shaken Baby Syndrome?”

“That sling probably cost more than my _car_ , it’s got shock absorbers coming out the wazoo, just run! I’ll — Oh, I know! I’ll tell them you have diarrhea.”

“You’re making this more and more appealing with every word,” Patrick says. “Just — Could you stop? Before I’m forced to go hang out in Lowes and find other, _better_ dad friends.”

“Yeah? They can build you a deck, but can they debate mid 80s metal albums for three hours?”

“You think that’s a _plus point_ to our friendship?”

“No, the plus point is my awesome band, most of whom will happily debate old jazz albums with you instead,” Joe raises an eyebrow. “Which you’d _know_ if you ever came along and jammed with us.”

“Your _band,”_ and Patrick air quotes the word to demonstrate how not-jealous he is that Joe has something he gets to do every week, even if that something is standing on a six inch riser in a dive bar and playing Sweet Home Alabama, “is called The Dad Kennedys.”

“So?”

“I’m _not_ joining a band called _The Dad Kennedys!”_

Avery grabs onto his chin with her red and white candy cane mouth and begins to suck aggressively. He has no idea if this is better or worse than pacifiers for her tiny, developing teeth and jaw. Maybe he’ll throw it out for debate on the blog, really get the bloodlust raging. His momentary lapse into parental contemplation is enough to give the chair — Bethany, owner of fifth grade Kamryn, a golden retriever named Sampson and the kind of lipstick that could kill a man at ten paces — enough time to catch up with them.

“Not thinking of running away from me I hope!” she says with a smile and a finger wag directly into Patrick’s personal space. “Patrick, honey, you look _fabulous_ as always!”

The jacket from Old Navy and jeans that were washed a week ago are the antithesis of fabulous. What Bethany means is that he is _gay_ and she is the kind of woman who seeks out the company of gay man in a vigorous demonstration of how incredibly woke and liberal she is. He is, to put not too fine a point on it, her very own Queer Pal for the Straight Gal.

Joe snickers, probably because he can see the puke stain spreading out like a flood map of the eastern seaboard across Patrick’s left shoulder. Bethany looks at him witheringly. “And — Wait, Jed, isn’t it?”

“That’s right!” Joe chirps sweetly. “If it has its roots in the Abrahamic religions and it starts with a J, I’ll probably answer to it!”

He has been called, throughout the course of one meeting, Joshua, Jacob, Joel and Jeremiah. If life is tough for Patrick as the resident gay parent of Westbrook Elementary School, it’s even more challenging for Joe, as no one seems capable of figuring out _why_ he isn’t at work and allowing his wife to stay home with their adorable four-year-old twins.

Patrick suspects he ought to intervene before there are, like, juice cups at dawn or something. He doesn’t favor Joe’s chances in hand to hand combat.

“Sweetie, _hi!”_ He pushes up his voice half an octave, because it’s what she _wants_ him to do. Then, he tweaks the shoulder of her navy peacoat and says, “And this is just _gorgeous,_ look at you! Is that couture?”

Note: he has _no idea_ what that means.

“Oh, this?” she blushes prettily and her laugh is clear as a bell, ringing across the front of the building. “I just picked this up in TJMaxx but, shhh, don’t go giving away my secrets.”

“Me? Honey, I would _never!”_

Placated by a liberal dose of Patrick’s passable Jonathan Van Ness impersonation, she diverts her attention from glaring venomously at Joe’s beatifically smiling face. Instead, she turns her attention to Avery who, because she is fantastic at working the crowd, provides her with a sunny smile so wide, it’s almost possible for Patrick to believe that no one notices the drool stringing from his chin to her mouth. Living with Avery is a lot like living in a live-action remake of Aliens.

“Well hello, beautiful girl,” Bethany coos. Subtly, Avery slips her hand into the neckline of Patrick’s t-shirt and attempts to strangle him in an act of unprovoked patricide. “Aren’t you the most gorgeous little thing?”

“Ba,” says Avery cheerfully, with an eye-watering handful of Patrick’s chest hair twisted in her chubby little fist. She yanks aggressively: Patrick squeals. “Dada!”

“Ow! Avery, sweetie, that’s — come on, honey bear, that stings.” She examines her spoils, looks Patrick in the eye and then, very solemnly, she sprinkles it on top of his thinning hair. “I — okay, that’s fair.”

There is a short silence, assuming no one is counting the way Joe snorts unattractively into the sleeve of his windbreaker. He is immensely lucky that Patrick is such a forgiving friend. Eventually, though, the hum of the freeway half a block away becomes almost deafening in the endless void of non existent conversation and Patrick shuffles his feet, extracts his daughter’s hand from the depth of his armpit before she gets anymore ideas about impromptu hair removal and asks, “Was there — Uh, did you need something, Bethany?”

“I was just hoping we could count on you as a chaperone for the spring formal next week,” she asks brightly.

Patrick was honestly hoping to spend the rest of his Friday evenings from now until he atrophies, sprawled on the couch in front of the TV, drowning his sorrows in pillowcase-sized sacks of potato chips. Apparently, there is no sanctity in the Laws of the Sign Up Sheet, which he pointedly ignored on his way out of the meeting.

_Tell her no,_ he instructs himself sharply, _tell her you have other plans and move on; you do not owe_ anyone _an explanation for how you wish to spend your time._

This memo does not make its way to Patrick’s mouth, which opens of its own accord and says, “Oh! Of course, I’d love to!” He looks at Joe as though this is all _his_ fault. “That’s — Was there a sign up? Did I — I must have missed it.”

“Right by the door. I did mention it a couple times during the meeting…”

“Oh. Uh — My bad?” Patrick smiles sweetly and resolves to take Joe down with him. “I think Joe wants to do it, too!”

Joe looks as though he would rather be peeled and rolled in salt. “Who’s Joe? I’m Jed! And, actually—”

“Excellent, I’ll jot your names down!” Bethany claps her hands together like the whole messy business is all under control. “Okay, well, have a great day! Give my love to Pete!”

Maybe it’s the way she doesn’t enquire about Joe’s wife who _has_ served her time at the coalface of school events when her work schedule allows it. Maybe it’s the fact that she _does_ enquire about Pete who, like a vampire without an invitation, has never crossed the threshold of the school since his children were enrolled. Maybe it’s that Patrick is childishly tired of pretending he is a bank vault of Good Gay Feelings from which nothing unpleasant can escape. Whatever it is, it stirs ugly in the depths of his chest, rising up like gorge at the back of his throat, the unsettling urge to be the monster in the middle school tripping against his tongue.

“Actually,” he says lightly, the words humming through him like a pulled grenade that he tosses casually into the center of their conversation, “Pete left me two weeks ago. I’d love to pass on your love but, to be honest, I’ve barely seen him since he left. If you see him, could you let him know his kids would like to know he’s not dead?”

These are words he hasn’t said out loud to anyone who isn’t Joe or his mom. If he thought the previous silence was uncomfortable, it has nothing on the echoing chasm of stillness currently vibrating between the three of them. It rings in his ears, the aftermath of a nuclear blast, as Bethany’s smile slips from bright to baffled to utterly, terribly mortified. He imagines he might feel satisfaction, if he wasn’t too busy feeling nauseous. Because, it’s the truth, isn’t it? Regardless of who asked who to leave, Pete didn’t fight. His effort to return has been the cursory minimum. _Pete_ _has left_ _him_.

“He… left you?” she asks, thoroughly bewildered, as though divorce is The Big Bad and the suburbs are supposed to be an impenetrable safe haven. She pulls at her wedding ring and takes half a step back, like it might be contagious. “Seriously?”

Patrick assumes his least heterosexual pose, his hip cocked to the side, “Can you _believe?”_

Bethany may have been struck by lightning. She may be _dead_ , so rictus is the grin on her face, so absolutely frozen in place, her car keys hanging loosely from her fist. It’s clear from the frantic swivel of her eyes towards the the parking lot that she wants nothing more than to run away from this conversation and never look back.

“Well,” she begins awkwardly. “I — I’m sorry to hear that. I should let you…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence before diving for the cover of her Honda. She does not look back, which is good, because Patrick suspects he may be tempted to shout ‘boo’ which is probably very childish. It turns out, he hasn’t got any of this as under control as he thought he did because, embarrassingly, his face is very damp and he’s hiccuping softly into the cuff of his jacket.

Joe slings an arm around him. “Hey, come on. This — this is all going to be fine, you know.”

“But what if it’s not?” he asks. There are only so many spins of the marital roulette wheel available to his jackass of a husband and he is running perilously thin on luck.

“Movie night,” says Joe with a particularly Joe brand of certainty. “Tonight, your place. I’ll bring the beer, you provide the playlist and the scintillating conversation.”

“No weed,” Patrick says seriously. “Last time I ate those hash brownies, I didn’t leave the bathroom for four hours. And I don’t mean because I was throwing up, if you get my meaning.”

“I like Housewife-Friendly, Performatively Homosexual Patrick,” Joe says wistfully. “He’s a way less gross than Regular Patrick.”

***

“Grindr?” says Patrick dubiously, soundtracked by John Candy threatening Jay Underwood on Pete’s expensive home cinema system. “I — that doesn’t — I mean, I don’t think I want to—”

“Come on,” Joe chides. “It’ll be fun! Think of it as Facebook for hot gay guys! You’re a hot gay guy, you can meet, like, _other_ hot gay guys and then you can be hot and gay together!”

“Sweating more than any man my age feasibly _should_ doesn’t make me hot,” Patrick snaps irritably. Joe, it seems, is not so much making a suggestion as committing to a pre-planned attack, the app already installed on his phone. “And do you have any idea how many dick pics there are floating around on that site?”

“Even better, you like dick, don’t you?”

Patrick elects not to answer beyond a grunt into his popcorn. He’s trying very hard not to focus on the fact that Joe just called him hot. He chews on salt and grease like it can distract him from the way Joe’s bottom lip is caught between his teeth. It doesn’t work, so he pinches deliberately into the generous padding on his upper thigh. Good friends do not stare hungrily at the mouths of their married best friend. That is, categorically, not a thing that good friends do.

“So, would you say your type was like, twunks? Or are you into bears? Wait, what are you again?”

“Very tired of this conversation,” Patrick bites out irritably. It doesn’t work; Joe laughs like he’s already high and crams in another mouthful of popcorn. “Can we just watch the movie?”

“We _are_ watching the movie,” Joe objects. “Look, I’m not saying you have to fuck any of these dudes, or even date them, I’m just saying it might be fun to take a look! Hey, look, this guy’s pretty cute. _Swole_ , I think is what the kids call it.”

“Whose kids say that?” Patrick sniffs, again, he chooses not to dwell on Joe rating the physical attractiveness of other men. In particular, he’s very pointedly _not_ thinking about how Joe called him _hot_ but this dude is just _cute_. “Not _your_ kids. Or mine, for that matter.”

“Just look!”

He extends his phone screen in Patrick’s direction, revealing a man with the dead eyes of a serial killer and the waxed torso of a Ken doll. Apparently, his name is Jefferson and he enjoys lifting weights, action movies and tensing his weirdly shiny abs and pectorals for selfies.

“He looks like the example image of how not to use photoshop.”

Joe laughs like Patrick just said the funniest thing, his eyes twinkling as he looks directly at Patrick’s mouth. They’ve never talked at length about sexuality – Joe is into women as evidenced by the presence of a wife but there’s every possibility that there’s more to it than that. Sexuality is a sliding scale and, although he’s never sat Joe down and figured out his Kinsey score, he figures that everyone’s at least a little bit gay.

Forget Pete and his marriage and the crushing sense of self-doubt that threatens to drown him every time he’s alone and the house is quiet. Forget the way his heart aches every time he reaches over in bed and grabs nothing but sheets. Joe is handsome and he’s scrolling through Grindr like he’s hungry for it. Patrick is only a man and he _wants_ so badly to feel wanted.

No. He needs to think unsexy thoughts. This is the beer slipping behind the wheel. Infidelity is never the answer and there’s a pack of Trojans in a Samsonite bag a suburb over that proves it. Patrick stares at his hands, the couch, the mismatched cotton of his socks, anything but Joe’s eyes, hands, mouth.

It’s impossible; Joe is so handsome with his arm tossed casually along the back of the sofa behind Patrick, with his bright blue eyes and his dark curls. There’s a dimple in his cheek when he smiles — which is often — and his mouth looks so pink in the glow of the television screen, so soft and warm. Behind his ribs, Patrick’s heart is a freight train. Joe’s lips are moving but all Patrick can hear, thrumming over and over like a litany is _you’re hot, you’re hot, you’re hot._

Joe called him hot, and he has not quantified it in a friendly or brotherly way. Joe called him hot and it must mean _something_. Joe called him hot and Patrick feels like right now — three beers and his heart down — he’s almost, sort of brave enough to do something about it.

Decisively, he knocks back the lingering dregs at the bottom of his bottle and tells himself it’s Dutch courage. Then, before he can change his mind or think or breathe, he leans forward and crushes his mouth to Joe’s.

It turns out, he was right. Joe’s mouth _is_ soft and it’s warm and it opens under the inquisitive sweep of Patrick’s tongue. For a brief second, Patrick is entirely elated because Joe’s lips are moving and he’s kissing Patrick back. He sings with it, leans forward eagerly and tastes alcohol, popcorn and Joe’s God-given fucking _mouth_.

It’s blissful until Patrick realizes that Joe is not leaning into him. In fact, Joe is pulling away and his mouth is moving because he’s saying, “What the _fuck?”_ Only he’s failing because he’s trying to say it around a mouthful of Patrick’s stupid, idiotic, _predatory_ gay tongue which he really ought to retract into his own mouth.

“Patrick — what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

_That_ is a very good question. Unfortunately, Patrick can’t answer it because he’s too busy dying of horrified mortification and puke-inducing guilt. He removes his hands from the front of Joe’s Iron Maiden shirt, swipes frantically at his mouth with the back of his wrist and curls back into the corner of the couch like he can shrink down small enough to slip between the cushions and smother himself and, when that doesn’t work, he stammers. “Oh — Fuck, I — I’m so fucking _sorry.”_

There are many more things he would like to add but, unfortunately, it seems the part of his grey matter that deals with conversation has shut down. In its place is a temporary booth apparently devoted to suffocating him with thick, choking sobs. This isn’t fair, he knows it, he doesn’t deserve to divert attention away from the horrific invasion of Joe’s personal space, marriage and _mouth_ he just staged, without warning, halfway through Uncle Buck. It turns out he has as much chance of controlling it as Canute had of turning away the tide. It floods through him, soaks through his hands and the cuffs of his cardigan and the front of his shirt. He is, apparently, constructed entirely of grief and snot.

“I—” he gasps insensibly. “I don’t — I’m so sorry! Don’t — please don’t tell Marie, I didn’t — I don’t. Pete, just—”

“Shit,” Joe mutters. He wraps Patrick in a hug he categorically does not deserve, and he murmurs into the sweaty curl of hair at his temple. “Okay, I’m pretty sure Marie wouldn’t approve of me like… running away with you, man. But I think she’d insist on this.”

Patrick cries. He cries until Joe’s shirt is hot and wet with his grief. He cries until he’s empty, until it feels like every drop of emotion has been wrung out of him and he’s limp and useless on the couch. He’s not sure he’ll ever be done apologizing. He’s not sure he’ll ever stop feeling ashamed.

“I don’t want to get divorced,” he tells Eddie the Head, because he can’t possibly look Joe in the eyes ever again. “I — I shouldn’t have made that your problem, though.”

Joe appears to give this great thought, his hand making slow circles in the small of Patrick’s back. “Pete is so lucky to have you,” he says eventually. “He has no idea, but he is. Listen, if I was gay and, you know, _single…”_

“Oh, god. Please don’t. You can go home, you know, I’m not — I’ll be fine.” Joe flicks at the wet spot on his shirt and gives Patrick a look that says this is demonstrably untrue. Patrick continues bitterly. “Seriously, this is just — this is how I am now. I’ll be okay.”

Before Joe can argue further, the room is filled with the sound of an auto tuned, five-way vocal harmony; _every little thing I do, never seems enough for you, you don’t wanna lose it again, but I’m not like them._

Joe blinks. “Your ringtone is N*Sync?”

“Fuck,” Patrick struggles upright and discovers that it’s possible for his guilt to intensify to the point it feels as though it’s filling his throat, climbing up through his windpipe, choking him. “It’s — Pete set it. It was, like, a joke, I guess. I — I’ll call him back later.”

Joe presses the phone into his hand and reaches for his jacket. “Talk to him,” he says. “Tell him if he doesn’t try harder, your buddy Joe is going to find you the best guy on Grindr to replace him.”

Patrick smiles. He is so grateful that Joe is not going to make him feel like the Predatory Gay Friend. As he collects his keys and heads for the door, Patrick raises the phone to his ear. He is cautious, like he imagines it might explode at any moment. “Hello?”

“Patrick?” says Pete, and he sounds broken apart down the center, desperate, but mostly — worryingly — he sounds drunk. Again. “’S’me, babe. ’S’just me.”

Patrick sighs and tucks his feet up onto the couch beneath him. Penny curls against him, soft under his hand. “You’re drunk.”

“Patrick, listen. Don’t hang up, babe, please — I — can we, uh, can we talk?”

It would be easy to refuse, half fury, half guilt inching Patrick’s thumb towards the big red button. It’s less a part of the phone and more a nuclear detonator, the devastating explosion that will tear their marriage apart beyond repair.

“Please?” Pete says again. “I spoke to the kids, babe. God, I — Fuck, I think… Maybe I get it.”

Does he want to be divorced? Alternate Christmases with the kids and splitting birthdays and vacations down the middle while Pete — Pete who is handsome, Pete who is charming when he needs to be, Pete who is interesting and well-travelled — moves on and Patrick is forced into an endless purgatory of dead-eyed Grindr dates? He clears his throat and looks at the family picture above the fireplace.

“Okay,” he says finally. “What is it you want to talk about?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/168268289@N03/47100498454/in/dateposted-public/)  
> 

Pete is coming to terms with the idea that he might, possibly, be a horrible father and husband. Although it’s been several years since he picked up a fairytale, he knows now that he’s far less the handsome prince and way more the wicked stepmother who whisks in, fucks everything up and leaves the mess for someone else to clean up. That _someone_ is invariably Patrick and there are perilously few petals left on loves-me-loves-me-not flower of their marriage.

He tries to make amends.

It starts slowly, and Pete is cautious, making phone calls to Patrick’s sleepy voice right before he rolls into the twin bed in his childhood bedroom. Patrick seems amenable to this, at least, sharing humdrum information about homework and ballet lessons — apparently Noah is good, _so good_ , could make it pro one day — and anecdotes about Avery mastering the ability to pull herself up on the coffee table. She’s not walking, not yet, but Patrick feels like it could happen any day now. He sounds genuinely excited at the prospect.

There’s something irresistibly charming about the excitement in Patrick’s voice when he talks about the kids’ achievements. He’s _jealous_ of that euphoria, but, curiously, not of the kids themselves. It’s no longer that he wants Patrick to speak about him in that reverent tone; he wants to use it for himself, to take joy in the idea of Harper writing her own name, of Caitlyn bringing him a good report card.

(He hopes it’s possible; that he’s not defective in this way, too. He thinks the Moon Pie Daddy Date went okay. He thinks — hopes — he can fake this til he makes it.)

Pete was even prepared to play nice with Joe at the house, to smile politely and make enquiries about his wife and children and remind himself that he’s been — is being — entirely paranoid. Irritatingly, Joe wasn’t there. Instead, it was Patrick’s sister who glared at him across the living room like he’d spent the past fifteen years systematically beating Patrick with a bag of blood oranges. He said it anyway — “No Joe?” — and he thinks his voice was bright and friendly and a decent demonstration of just how cool he can pretend to be with with Patrick’s handsome dad friend. Then Patrick joined in with the glaring and he decided it was probably best to keep his mouth shut around the emotional instability of the Stump siblings.

It’s hard to prove he’s experiencing an epiphany when no one is willing to let him break free and shine.

Right now, they’re chasing the sunset along the 120 and Patrick is staring out of the window at the flat, endless green of the Midwest in spring. Pete fidgets with the radio controls on the steering wheel, bouncing between stations until he hits Everybody Wants to Rule the World, halfway through the song. A natural-born lover of eighties hits, Patrick begins to drum his hands lightly against his knees and Pete is struck by how simple it would be to reach over the parking brake and take one, to tease his thumb along the hum of Patrick’s pulse in his wrist. There’s every possibility that Patrick would demand to be allowed to leave the car immediately, if Pete so much as _thinks_ about touching him, so he resists the urge and watches the headlights moving back towards Chicago.

“What are you thinking?” he blurts it out without thinking. It’s a stupid question, really, Patrick is no doubt thinking about the many other places he would like to be right now that aren’t Pete’s car, on the way to another miserable attempt to rekindle their relationship. That is, definitely, not a thought Pete wants to hear about but post-separation Patrick is painfully honest so he braces for the worst.

He cocks his head and looks at Pete and says, seriously, “Do you think Roland and Curt are pissed that Mad World only broke the US when some asshole stripped away the synth and put a shitty vocal over the top?”

Patrick’s gaze is very gray behind his glasses, still and thoughtful, lake-like in its intensity. He is genuinely interested in hearing Pete’s input on this musical conundrum. Pete laughs, he can’t help it, it’s so gloriously _Patrick_ — the person, not the father — that he snorts across the steering wheel and receives some serious side eye in return.

“What?” Patrick snaps — he’s blushing and it’s adorable. In all of the animosity and, before that, the wilful ignorance, Pete has forgotten how it feels to make Patrick blush. “You asked what I was thinking about! I told you — it’s really not that funny.”

“You’re serious?” he asks, but why wouldn’t Patrick be serious? “ _That’s_ why you’re staring at the horizon like it owes you an explanation? God, I thought you were thinking deep, philosophical thoughts.”

“Depends on your worldview. Some people find the influence of new wave music very important.”

“You’re a regular Plato for Synth Pop.”

Patrick sniffs, just once, to demonstrate his disdain and then he lodges his knees up against the glove compartment and spreads his hands against the (thick, luscious, deliciously _solid)_ width of his thighs. It turns out, that once Pete allowed himself to begin thinking positive thoughts about Patrick it became easier, they flow more naturally, like water or oil slick. He wants to sinks his hands into those thoughts, his wrists and his arms, to submerge himself until he’s irreparably _dirty_ with them. It’ll be like a reverse baptism, he decides, washing away the No Touch rule and making themselves filthy, how they used to be in college when all that mattered was the next illicitly gained orgasm.

Or maybe not _exactly_ like that, what with the kids. Still, parent-friendly rediscovery sounds fun.

“Are you going to ask where we’re going?” he asks playfully. Patrick huffs under his breath. “You’re not even a little bit curious?”

“McHenry, apparently,” Patrick says, squinting at the road signs. “What’s in McHenry?”

“A public library,” Pete informs him, sharing his Wikipedia knowledge even though Patrick looks unimpressed. “A couple of gas stations, a series of fast food eateries including, but not limited to, Subway, McDonalds, Long John Silver’s and, _and_ , hold your applause, Patrick Martin Stump-Wentz, a _Wendy’s,”_ Patrick rolls his eyes — Pete hopes this is affectionate, “I sense none of this is your scene, so let me blow you… _away_. They also have the Prairie Trail—”

“—We are _not_ hiking—”

“—We are _not_ hiking,” Pete agrees as he signals left at the intersection. “And a mall—”

“—God, the excitement—”

“—And... they have this.”

To their left is a high breezeblock wall, the lower section choked in creeping ivy. It looks like something from a fifties, coming of age novella. Pete wants to climb into his own nostalgia and relive his youth, to bring Patrick here in the shitty Jetta he drove in college, to watch that sunrise smile that used to bite at the corners of his mouth blossom once more. Or maybe it just looks like a crumbling subsection of a federal penitentiary and the romance is running away with him.

The sign is illuminated and Patrick catches it with a smile: McHenry Outdoor Theater.

“Do you…” he begins awkwardly, because Patrick hasn’t spoken yet. “Is this something you think you’re into?”

They’re playing Top Gun — cashing in on the early summer nostalgia of middle-aged men who want to fake like the military machismo outweighs the overwhelming homoerotic subtext. The last time they watched this movie they’d just moved into their apartment in Roscoe. They made a pact to make out every time something gay happened and by twenty minutes in, Pete’s mouth was bright with the taste of Patrick’s tongue, his chin chafed with stubble burn. It’s not Ghostbusters, not Rushmore or Star Wars or any of the other movies that Patrick loves, but it’s something that feels important _to them_. He pulls off the road but not into the line for the ticket booth, like doing so crosses some ancient, sacramental line between them. There is no way he’ll repeat their first two dates; his silence is measured, intentional, controlled.

For a moment or two, it looks as though Pete has judged this as badly as he’s judged everything else for the past five years, Patrick’s grim, unsmiling mouth as flat as the horizon-chasing landscape they’ve driven through to get here. It’s no less than he deserves, he reminds himself, nothing more than the rotten yield of the crop he sowed with his absence. Then, with sudden, golden ferocity, Patrick’s smile breaks.

“Top Gun?” he asks lightly.

Pete’s smile is cautious as he slips the car into drive. “I thought it was — Do you remember that night?”

“You only suggested that game so you’d have an excuse to hump my leg.”

God, Patrick, twenty-two and his mouth as red and sweet as a candy apple. The relative sense of privacy afforded by paper thin walls in a two-bed walk up right above a kosher deli when what they were used to was shared dorm rooms and communal bathrooms. Clothes were a forbidden thing for the first six months, crossing the threshold meant kicked off jeans and discarded shirts and Pete’s mouth everywhere on that flushed, pink skin and coppery hair. It was holy. Pete twists his fingers around the steering wheel and stops thinking about the things they used to do in that apartment.

“I would never!” Pete’s got half of his attention on the tail lights of the Dodge in front of them, the other half on the way Patrick rolls the tension knot out of his shoulders. Patrick shoots him this look from the corner of his eye, knowing, his smirk curling deliciously just beneath. “Okay, maybe that was part of the reason but, come on, d’you blame me? You were a fucking snack.”

It becomes apparent right away that this was not the right thing to say. The car falls silent until Patrick mutters, “Past tense.”

If Patrick is an empty vessel, then Pete will pour everything he has into him, he will flood him with good feeling, he will _not allow_ this date to go south when there’s the possibility that he actually picked something decent. “Babe,” he says earnestly, “if you were a snack then, you’re a three course fucking _meal_ right now.”

When Patrick stops talking this time, it’s less irritated and more stunned. Pete’s skin tone doesn’t really lend itself to blushing but right now, he is _glowing_. There is no way that he just combined those words into a sentence like a 12-year-old talking about their _fave_. Those are not words that men approaching forty are able to say out loud and retain their dignity. He concentrates very hard on the car in front and wonders how hard it would be to scale the wall and hurl himself to his death. It’s maybe 50 feet high — the odds are stacked in his favor.

Over the hum of the radio, Patrick appears to be choking to death in an attempt not to laugh out loud. It’s that or he’s in the middle of an aneurysm, senseless little _nee nee_ noises squeaking from the back of his nose. The good news is that the tension is broken. The bad news is that it’s at the expense of Pete’s dignity.

“Stop laughing, it’s not that funny,” Pete says; Patrick breaks and starts to laugh like it very much _is_ , big belly laughs that echo around the car and flush him pink and make his eyes wet at the corners. If it wasn’t aimed at _him_ , Pete would find it charming. Instead, he buys their tickets and parks and waits, his arms crossed, for Patrick to stop being a _dick_.

“Oh _God,”_ Patrick wheezes, leaning back in his seat weakly. “You — Did you pick that up from Caitlyn? That’s — Shit, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Shut up!” Pete implores, his mouth twitching at the corners. This man has seen him at his best and his worst, with blood on his mouth and tears in his eyes and everything in between. Embarrassment, at this stage, is completely pointless. “It’s not too late for me to put you out of the car and make you watch from behind the fence.”

“Go get your snack a snack,” Patrick says, waving Pete in the direction of the concessions booth with a twenty pulled from his wallet. Pete goes willingly and without taking the cash. “Oh, and Pete? Don’t put a hole in the bottom of the popcorn, I’m not falling for that again.”

“You’re no fun.”

The problem with being married, is that the other party knows _all_ of your signature moves.

***

Pete brings back dixie cups of Dr Pepper, a box of black licorice sticks and one of cookie dough bites, and a family-sized bucket of salted popcorn. His hands overflow with movie snacks and he slops soda onto the upholstery of his car, apparently without noticing. As Pete hands him the licorice, as casual as breathing, Patrick is unreasonably touched that he remembered his favorite candy.

“I have no idea how you can eat that,” he says gruffly, as if embarrassed by his own carefulness. “At least meet me halfway and switch to the red stuff.”

“But I like the black,” Patrick objects. “It’s got real _flavor.”_

“So does ass,” Pete opines, “and whilst I’m not going to object to shoving my mouth down there, I wouldn’t want to sprinkle it on my ice cream.”

Patrick’s dick twitches at that. It’s been a while.

Pete is already wrist deep in the popcorn, chewing rhythmically. Patrick will need to stake a claim on his fair share if he wants it or Pete will, without a doubt, decimate it entirely before the trailers are finished. It’s nice to know these things about one another — simple things like favorite candy and movie snacking habits — the finest capillaries of a carefully tuned vascular system they’ve built together. This is a terrifying metaphor to draw — at the center of this twist of veins and arteries rests a heart that’s barely beating. What will they do if this last ditch attempt at CPR doesn’t work?

“Want some?” Pete asks, offering the bucket. He looks nervous, his amber eyes wary in the light of the movie screen. There’s no way Patrick is going to eat salted popcorn with his husband after the last time he ate it, the taste of Joe’s mouth and his rejection and Patrick’s bitter, toxic guilt still thick on his tongue. He shakes his head. “Listen,” Pete continues awkwardly, playing with the wedding ring he hasn’t taken off even if Patrick _has_ , “I hope you don’t — I didn’t, uh, like — Bringing you here, to this specific movie? I wasn’t trying to, you know, recreate the last time. I’m not — There doesn’t have to be kissing or, like, _any_ touching. At all. If that’s something you’re not comfortable with.”

This is the longest declaration relating to someone else’s personal comfort that Pete’s made in a decade. It’s not immediately clear how believable this one is. Patrick’s not an angry teenager anymore, he doesn’t settle his disputes with with his temper in the way he did before he met Pete (and after he met Pete and, actually, quite embarrassingly far into his relationship with Pete). He’s tired now, resigned, there’s no more fire or fight left in him. When he replies, his voice is controlled and terrifyingly level.

“Are you going to try to persuade me to suck your cock before Goose dies?” he asks. God, he sounds bone-fucking- _weary_.

“Hey,” the guy in the next car over objects, _“spoilers!”_

“Oh, _come on!”_ Patrick snaps. “This came out in 1986!” He turns back to Pete. “Because, honestly? I really don’t feel like—”

“That’s not what I meant!” Pete sounds exactly like Caitlyn when Patrick catches her not _not_ attempting to hide the fact she has algebra homework. “Why won’t you let me be nice?”

It’s best in these situations to count to ten, to let everything take a breath, so Patrick begins, _one, two, three…_

“You want me to fail,” Pete continues, unwisely, in Patrick’s opinion. “Why are you always _desperate_ to think there’s some ulterior motive to everything I do around you?”

_FourfivesixseveneightnineTEN._

“Because there literally — _literally_ — always is with you! You’ve never done anything in our time together that didn’t, in some way, benefit _you_. You don’t _do_ selfless. You’re a spectacular, raging fucking _dumpster fire_ of self-absorbed bullshit and, like, seriously, if you pull another fucking stunt like you did after the bowling alley, I won’t — I _refuse_ to be held responsible for my actions.”

Curled into the driver’s seat, Pete looks smaller than he ever has. He looks as though he might be about to cry, his hands twisting over the lip of the popcorn bucket. “I didn’t…” he begins, stops, and then tries again. “I didn’t meant to make you feel that way. I’m — Can I wind up the windows for a sec? I feel like everyone in McHenry is staring at us right now.”

“Go ahead,” Patrick sighs. They’re airing a commercial for leg wax and it’s been a _long_ time since Patrick cared about a beauty regime that extends beyond showering and brushing his teeth. “I’m surprisingly _not_ interested in getting that vacation-smooth feeling for up to six weeks.”

The window slides up silently and it’s just the two of them and the rustle of the popcorn that Pete doesn’t seem to know where to put. He settles for jamming it onto the dash and then turning in his seat carefully and with strict deliberation. Tonight, he hasn’t been drinking and Patrick is thankful for that, it lends additional sincerity to his eyes as he worries gently at a loose fray of skin by his thumb nail.

“You think I’m a jerk,” he begins, which is not untrue, so Patrick allows him to continue unchecked, “and it feels like it doesn’t matter how hard I try _not_ to be a jerk, you’re going to keep thinking, like, Jerk Thoughts about me.”

The capitalization of Jerk Thoughts is audible. Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose and reminds himself that Pete is no longer 25-years-old and devoid of responsibilities; he doesn’t get to talk his way out of this by pouting. “You’re not...” he says carefully, “you’re not really giving me a reason to _not_ think Jerk Thoughts about you.”

“I’m trying,” Pete implores desperately. “Can’t you just accept that I’m trying? Can’t you give me that?”

Patrick feels as though his head is caving in. For years, Pete has suffixed everything he does with ‘too’; he’s too much, too little, too late, too loud and too selfish. They’ve built their marriage around the universal truth that Patrick gives and Pete takes, that he hands over what little he has and Pete hoards whatever he wants. They don’t share, not in the strictest sense, and this — this overly cautious, treading on eggshells Pete — is too much to be sincere. Patrick has given _everything_ , there’s no guarantee he has anything left inside of him to offer up.

The night he told Pete to leave, Patrick was terrified he was losing everything. In reality, and with a month of lived experience, he realizes that he doesn’t _need_ Pete, that the hole he left behind was nothing more than a surface wound. Their family will heal and recover without him there and Patrick will — probably — be absolutely _fine_. It’s simultaneously reassuring and endlessly frightening to think that someone can take so much and contribute so little that the only thing left behind when they’re not clogging up the washing machine with their work shirts or leaving their dirty coffee cups in the sink is _relief._

“I’m happy you’re trying,” he says eventually, because he _is_ , “I’m glad you’ve decided that I’m worth at least a little effort, but I’m not sure trying is enough at this stage.”

“I can’t do anything else, I don’t — I don’t know what else you want me to do.” Pete is so desperate in his badly pressed Harley Davidson shirt and his jeans that are more appropriate for front row at a metal gig than lounging in the car watching Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer pretend they don’t want to fuck in the locker room. “I — please don’t like, punch me in the face for this, but — I love you. You _know_ that, don’t you? Fuck, please tell me you believe that, if nothing else.”

“I—” Patrick falters. Pete looks desperate, hopeful, unfairly hinged on Patrick acknowledging _his_ feelings, _his_ emotions. “I know you do, but you’re not the only person in this relationship. You do _understand_ that, right?”

Backed into the corner of his seat, Pete looks confused. “I didn’t say I was. Look, I know the last two dates haven’t gone well—” Patrick snorts under his breath, “—but it’s ridiculously unfair of you to even _come_ on these dates if you’re not going to give me a straight shot when I _don’t_ fuck up.”

That is… alarmingly sensible, far, far more sensible than anything that’s escaped Pete’s mouth since Patrick started noticing the bad stuff outweighing the good stuff. He clears his throat, blushing slightly, “I don’t — Do you feel like I’m setting you up to fail?”

“I feel like your heart isn’t in this,” Pete shrugs and bites his lip like he’s trying to be brave. “And, like, if that’s the case, then why are you putting both of us through this? I’m not asking you to rewind back a month and pretend nothing ever happened. I’m asking you to give me — to give _us_ — an actual chance. If you’re not going to do that then, honestly, I think I should just take you home and let the lawyers start talking. But I love you, Patrick, and I’m sorry I haven’t said that enough recently.”

That makes Patrick pause. The last time Pete made a speech quite so heartfelt, when it seemed like he was cracking himself down the middle like a folding star and allowing Patrick to inspect the interplanetary dust and decay that lay within, was on their wedding day. Now, he’s forced to face the idea that Pete is more than an emotional vacuum, existing beyond a liminal space where nothing matters but work and badly-requested blowjobs. It’s not that he hasn’t cared about the possible effect the separation is having on Pete, it’s that he’s imagined this whole time that is hasn’t really bothered him at all. There is, after all, a pack of unopened condoms in his overnight bag that suggests he had alternative methods of entertainment.

He says quietly, “I’m not trying to be unfair.”

“I know!” Pete rushes to fill the geyser between them with words, to slap a band aid over a missing limb. “I’m not saying that. Well, I’m not _exactly_ saying that, I just mean—”

“Pete,” Patrick says softly. “If this is going to get better — and honestly, I have no idea if it _can_ at this point — you need to start listening and stop talking over me.”

“I—” Pete starts, stops, snaps his mouth shut fast and hard enough that his teeth click. He nods and stays silent.

“Our marriage is dead.” On the far side of the parking brake, Pete winces. “No, it’s true, and it’s time we said it out loud. There’s no bringing back what we had before, it’s _gone_ , but I think — I _hope_ — that there’s a possibility we can find something… new. We can’t revive it, but we can try to start again. And the way to do that _isn’t_ by trying to, uh, I don’t know. I feel like you’re trying to recreate the good times and that’s — it’s not going to work.”

The movie has started and the sky is streaked with chemtrails and fighter jets and Kenny Loggins tinny on the speakers just beyond the closed windows. Sometimes, long-dead things can be reborn, Patrick thinks. Maybe there’s a phoenix that can rise from the ashes of this doomed, decaying corpse of a relationship.

“What you need to understand,” he continues, “is that pushing things like you did in the bowling alley, or saying shit like Avery is _my_ baby, these are things that are going to make sure I never let you back in.”

Pete looks suitably shamefaced, “I didn’t mean that. It was just — I just said it and I didn’t think.”

“But you _said_ it, and it — it fucking _hurt_ ,” Patrick admits and it feels… unpleasant to be so vulnerable and exposed with his armour torn back and his body beaten bloody, “she’s your daughter, too.”

“You could’ve asked me to check on her with you,” Pete says quietly.

“And you could’ve offered,” Patrick points out. “But, if you’re serious, and you’re willing to take things slowly then I’m willing to listen.”

Patrick extends his hand carefully, palm up, outstretched towards Pete’s. This is the most crushingly open he’s allowed himself to be since Harper was born and every battered nerve screams at him to pull back, to prevent Pete from getting in and detonating another incendiary explosion beneath his heart. He holds fast, refusing to flinch as Pete reaches out and cautiously, carefully, as though Patrick is a fragile artefact unearthed, slides his fingertips along Patrick’s palm.

They’re both holding their breath, Patrick realizes, both fraught and broken and desperate as the pad of Pete’s thumb sweeps along the heel of his hand. Their fingers brush, lace and slide together. They still fit; Patrick squeezes gently, feels the length of Pete’s fingers around his own, the rough callus on his thumb, the whorls and divots of his palm. He hasn’t felt this lightheaded, this nervous and sweaty-palmed about holding hands since third grade. He exhales for the first time in months.

“I can see your heartbeat,” Pete says, raw as an exposed nerve, his eyes riveted on the chest of Patrick’s ratty t-shirt. He sounds overwhelmed.

Patrick laughs, a hyena bark as he shifts and reaches to roll down the window. The roar of the planes on screen cuts through his reply. “Yeah, well, that’s probably a cardiac issue, don’t flatter yourself.”

“You guys cool now?” calls the dude from the car beside theirs. “No more spoilers, okay?”

Patrick smiles winningly, “Maverick’s dad died a hero, the board just lied and said he was to blame for the crash.”

“Oh, fuck _you!”_

“Please don’t get us into a fight,” Pete begs. He’s snorting, ugly laughing, and his hand is still wound around Patrick’s. “I’m too fucking old to take punches for you.”

“I have an idea,” Patrick says, gathering their snacks into the center console. “Like the first time, only better. Every time I spot homoerotic undertones, you have to eat licorice and, if you spot them, I have to eat cookie dough. We can race each other to a sugar crash.”

Pete grimaces. “I hate licorice and _you_ hate cookie dough.”

“Well,” says Patrick. “Guess you’ll have to race me to find more gay shit.”

“You’re way gayer than I am, you’ll win,” Pete pouts.

“Come on,” Patrick goads him. “Do it for the subtext. You know what they say…”

Pete finishes for him: “You can’t spell subtext without buttsex.”

And Patrick leans into him, brings their shoulders together and — not at all erotically — jams a stick of licorice into Pete’s mouth. Tonight, they can laugh and they can watch Maverick and Iceman and muscular dudes in short shorts playing volleyball and exchanging desperate looks in the locker room.  Tonight, there’s a possibility that things are worth fixing. Patrick is willing to try. So, Patrick laughs at Pete’s grimace until he exchanges it for one of his own when Pete crams an unfairly large handful of cookie dough pieces into his mouth. If he concentrates very hard on Val Kilmer’s ass — which is not a burden — then he doesn’t have to concentrate on the idea of a pack of Trojans he can no longer say, with certainty, are unopened. So, he sits back and enjoys the rest of their evening, avoiding conversational man traps that will have to be triggered at some point in the future but not tonight.

It is, for the first time in a very long time, _nice._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr [here!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sn1tchesandtalkers)


	9. Chapter 9

“So, what I’m saying is, I don’t _not_ like the heather, but I’m almost certain I like the charcoal more, you know?” Patrick says. “Oh God, I can’t decide. What do you think?”

He holds up two t-shirts for Pete to inspect. They are both very plain and very boring and the only discernible difference between them is that one is dark gray and one is light gray. Other than that, they’re completely identical, right down to the shapeless neckline. A palette of misery in monochrome in the center of the men’s section of Target. It’s been a long time since Pete’s worn eye makeup, but he’s pretty sure Urban Decay would be all over this shit — Midsummer Night’s Sadness, for when you want your smokey eye to really tell a tale of back-to-back night shifts, TV dinners for one and broken dreams.

“Patrick,” he begins, “when I said I wanted to take you shopping I meant, like, in _actual_ clothing stores, not monolithic temples to low-cost, disposable consumerism.”

“Can you stop talking like you’re writing an article?” Patrick purses his lips and picks at an imaginary thread on one of the t-shirts. “This is where I buy my clothes.”

“That’s not reassuring, it’s tragic.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Target, they actually do some pretty decent buy one, get one half off specials and if you couple it with a loyalty card—”

“Stop,” Pete begs. “Please, just _stop.”_

“You’re being a snob,” Patrick sniffs, which is fair, he totally is. But, while they might not be able to bathe in Dom Pérignon, they’re definitely at a stage where they could stretch to washing their balls in a sink filled with Moët and it would be nice if Patrick could stop acting like they’re counting the pennies.

“There’s nothing snobby about appreciating quality over quantity,” Pete informs him haughtily.

Patrick glances doubtfully at Pete’s shoes. “You look like you stole your sneakers from a homeless person _and_ the laces don’t match,” he points out. “I don’t think you’re in any position to call anyone’s clothing quality into question.”

“These are _limited edition,”_ Pete points out, “they cost _eight hundred dollars!”_ Patrick boggles slightly and makes a sound like he just touched a live wire. Pete rushes on, before he can start talking about boring things like overpaying the mortgage or ballet lessons. “But anyway, we’re supposed to be here to get stuff _for you.”_

In response, Patrick gestures expansively at the two sad-looking t-shirts. They have bright red stickers affixed to the precise spot where Patrick’s right nipple would be, should he slip them on instead of his current sad, gray shirt. The stickers say _WOW $8._ Pete has never felt less wowed in his _life_.

When Pete does nothing more than lift an eyebrow in the direction of their cart, which is filled to the brim with kid’s clothes, Patrick blushes. “Look,” he says, “babies and toddlers outgrow their clothes in _nanoseconds,_ and Noah goes through socks like he’s eating them, and Caitlyn said she needs new jeans and she literally never asks me for _anything_ , so, like, what am I supposed to do?”

“Okay, stay calm,” Pete says, carefully taking hold of the hangers and placing the god-awful t-shirts back in the depths of retail purgatory where they belong. “I think you’re probably supposed to leave everything in that cart for a day when we come back with the kids. For _today,_ it might be nice if you focused a little attention on yourself.”

“I was doing that,” Patrick snaps. “That’s _exactly_ what I was doing when I showed you the t-shirts.”

“You grabbed them from the rack without looking!” Pete says. “And, honestly? I think the only reason you didn’t buy both is because you’ve convinced yourself you shouldn’t spend _sixteen fucking dollars_ on stuff for yourself.”

“Oh,” says Patrick. “Um…”

Fortunately, Patrick’s too polite to point out the many times Pete’s talked about _his salary_. He frowns at the cart like he might be thinking about making a break for the checkout line with it before Pete can stop him. Pete edges between the two of them, cutting off the predator in sensible sneakers from its prey.

“And here we see the Stump-Wentz,” Pete begins, “a hominid hunter-gatherer approaching the 50 percent off rack. See how he circles the earth-toned poly-blends, clearly hoping he can separate a geriatric button down from the rest of the herd.”

Patrick scowls. “Stop doing David Attenborough impressions at me, your British accent sucks.”

“Other things about me suck,” Pete assures him, deadpan. “Other much more fun, much more _enjoyable_ sucking experiences to be had if you play your cards right, but right now we need to get outside before someone rubs two pairs of acrylic sweatpants together and the whole place goes up in flames. Do you want the kids to be orphans?”

Making blowjob references might not be the wisest idea Pete’s ever had but then, neither is taking Patrick on a shopping date when he’s most at home in Old Navy cotton-blends and sensible shoes. But Pete is a not-quite-ex-husband with a plan: If it’s true that he’s spent the past five years systematically deconstructing the basic cellular structure of Patrick’s withered self-esteem, then he should be the one to put him back together, to apply the fashion-conscious sunshine to his drab, wintery wardrobe and watch him flower. Not to sound overtly homosexual, but Patrick is about half a decade overdue for a significant fashion makeover and Pete has five hours to metamorphosize his husband from PTA Zero to Ballet Dad Hero.

“You said _we,”_ Patrick mutters as they head back into the parking lot.

“Hmm?” Pete asks. “When?”

“In the store. You said _we_ would bring the kids back for new clothes some other time.”

The significance of the choice of noun is lost on Pete. He frowns, confused. “I — Yeah? I mean, did you want to fix a date for it, or…?”

“No,” Patrick says, shaking his head and smiling a small, private smile. “It’s fine. So, where are we going, Donatella?”

“Somewhere better,” Pete says decisively.

“Sears?” Patrick asks, clipping on his seatbelt and reaching for the radio. “Ooh, or how about The Gap? I have a coupon!”

Pete sighs an exasperated sigh. “Patrick, I said _better.”_

Patrick raises his eyebrows. “JCPenney?”

“Oh God,” Pete shakes his head, “come now, young Padawan, much to teach you, there is.”

“The only thing more terrible than your Attenborough impression is your Yoda voice. Where the hell are we going?”

Pete smiles toothily. “You have to trust me.” Patrick looks as though that’s unlikely.

This will be the best damn shopping date anyone has ever been on.

An hour later, they stand at the furthest edge of Club Monaco. The reason they’re in Club Monaco is because Patrick physically refused to cross the threshold of Gucci with the kind of visceral fear reserved for vampires being lured into churches. The store is crisp and clean and smells of expensive clothing and the cologne of every guy-like-Pete stocking up on essentials. Patrick looks desperately unhappy and a little bit frantic around the eyes as he thrusts yet another shirt back into Pete’s arms.

“Pete,” he begins, through gritted teeth, “that shirt is almost one hundred dollars. Do you know how many shirts I could’ve bought in Target for that price?”

“None,” says Pete, “because everything in Target comes with a big, _I’m cheap and cheerless_ , eight-dollar sticker right on the nipple. Do you _want_ people to think you have eight-dollar nipples?”

“I don’t think anyone is thinking anything about my nipples as a general rule,” Patrick grumbles. “At least, I _hope_ they’re not…”

“You have super nice nipples,” Pete informs him absently, which he does. “Impossibly pink.”

The guy at the next rack chokes softly.

“Okay,” Patrick hisses, “can we please pretend this is a world where we don’t talk about my fucking _nipples_ at the mall like that’s a thing normal people do? Can you fake that for me?”

Patrick’s been eyeing a dark blue, leaf-print number with short sleeves and a button collar for the past ten minutes. Picking it up, then putting it down and scowling at the price tag like he can change the number with the power of disapproval. The constant motion of his arm is beginning to make Pete feel car sick and it’s clear he isn’t going to carpe his diem and take it any time soon without external assistance.

With an exasperated sigh, Pete leans past him and grabs it in a large. “Do you like this? Or is your hand sticky?”

Behind them, the clerk looks as though he might be in the process of having an aneurysm. There’s every possibility he thinks Patrick, in his bleach-stained Henley by Walmart, is actually wiping something unpleasant onto his hundred-dollar shirts. Pete smiles at him toothily and fakes like he’s picking his nose.

“I—” Patrick pauses and cocks his head like a puppy. “I neither like nor dislike it. It’s fine, it’s just a shirt. Can you _stop_ picking your nose? God, I shouldn’t have to have these conversations when the kids aren’t with us.”

“Do you want the shirt?” Pete asks, although it’s very obvious that Patrick does want the shirt. “You want the shirt, right? Let’s get the shirt.”

“We’re not getting the shirt,” Patrick says firmly. “That would pay for Caitlyn’s karate for a whole semester.”

They’re not in a position where buying a shirt is going to tip them into a cycle of credit card debt and payday loan sharks. It’s becoming increasingly annoying that every item of clothing Pete picks up is met with the same deafening shriek at the price like he’s Jeff Bezos and avoiding his tax bill to keep himself in Club Monaco pants. There’s got to be more going on than Patrick keeping a beady eye on their finances.

Pete sighs, “You know we can afford both, right? Like, you buying this shirt isn’t going to mean you’ve got to feed the kids ramen for the next six months. You clearly like the shirt.”

“It’s just a shirt,” Patrick insists. “I could get, like, _four_ just as great shirts from Old Navy for the same price.”

“No you couldn’t, because they’d be shirts from Old Navy.” Pete snaps, exasperated. “Patrick, you like the shirt, just try it on and then we can buy the fucking shirt and move on with our lives. Which are going to remain unchanged, so we’re clear, only you’ll be dressed in a nicer shirt.”

Patrick folds his arms theatrically. “I’m not trying on the shirt.”

“Why not? God, just take the damn shirt and—”

“Because it won’t fit me!” Patrick hisses, before Pete can continue. He sounds so angry that Pete takes an involuntary step back and brings the shirt to his chest defensively. “Because I’m a fucking _fat ass_ and there’s _no way_ that’s going to button up when I strap myself into it. I’ll be lucky if it’ll even go over my shoulders.”

Pete frowns and touches the hem of Patrick’s Henley. “No, this is a large, I mean, you’re a—”

“Double XL,” Patrick mutters at his shoes. “I’m – Yeah. I’m fat. And that won’t fit me. So if you could just put it down and stop talking about it… That would be great.”

“Your clothes are too big,” Pete says calmly.

Patrick’s head snaps up as he glares at Pete. He is so furious it radiates from him like heat, like Pete will burn if he steps any closer. Through gritted teeth, he whispers, “I – _Excuse_ me?”

“Your clothes,” Pete continues matter-of-factly. “If you’re wearing a double XL, then you’re buying way too big to cover up.” Patrick looks as though he might be imagining removing Pete’s testicles from his body with the bluntest part of a clothes hanger. “Look, glare at me all you want but I know clothes and I know that you’re buying the wrong size. Try the large,” he hands it over and Patrick takes it, pissy and wary. Pete waves a hand in the direction of the changing room. “Go ahead. I’ll wait here, you don’t have to show me if you don’t want to.”

The short story is this: They buy the fucking shirt – and three others – in a large and Pete manages not to look _too_ smug about it.

“Where next?” he asks, examining the map.

Patrick shrugs, “Honestly, that’s – We can go home now.”

“No way, we’re just getting started! You have to think big!”

Patrick looks down at his stomach and grimaces. “I always think big. Kind of necessary, you know?”

“Babe,” Pete begins quietly. “I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” Patrick cuts him off in a voice that suggests it’s definitely not fine, “it’s just one of those things, we don’t have to analyze it, or discuss it, or even talk about it _at all._ Hey, is Mexican food okay with you?”

It turns out that realizing he’s the cause, keeper and sustainability program of Patrick’s self-consciousness is not a particularly pleasant feeling. Maybe if he’d tried a little harder. Maybe if he’d delivered a few more compliments instead of taking swipes about the ice cream in the freezer. Maybe if he was a different man, capable of considering the feelings of others ahead of his own. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Cautiously, he says, “Look, if you wanted to come with me to the gym, sometime…?”

“Hey, look at how I’m _not talking about it!”_ Patrick exclaims cheerfully. “Do you see how I’m doing that? And how you’re, like, _not_ doing that? Could you maybe follow my lead, do you think?”

“I’m not being a dick,” Pete insists sincerely. “I just – you seem like you were happier with how you looked back when Harper was a baby and I want you to feel like that again.”

They walk in silence and it’s awkward, which is sadly not unusual. Most of their interactions for the past few weeks have had this same pervasive background level of awkwardness, like the constant _click, click, click_ of an emotional Geiger counter humming through every conversation they have. Pete’s almost certain he’s said the wrong thing – _again_ – and he can’t figure out why – _again_. The whole thing is so confusing and unfair. He’s trying. Goddammit, he’s trying and that should… He feels like it should count for something.

“Do you know why fat people don’t like it when thin people offer to help them lose weight?” Patrick asks eventually. Pete would like to get back to discussing discount t-shirts but shakes his head in response. “It’s because we _know_ how to be thin, academically at least. We’re not fucking stupid, we know that carrot sticks are better than donuts, we know that jogging is better than television shows on the couch. But it’s so fucking _hard.”_

“I can help,” Pete insists. “We can do it together; I could stand to lose a few pounds myself.”

“Shut up,” Patrick says sharply. “The thing is, you’ve always been thin. You were a skinny kid who grew into a skinny twenty-something who hit the gym and turned into an athletic thirty-something, you know?”

Pete stays silent, because it sounds rhetorical and Patrick is not a man who enjoys having his rhetorical questions answered. Finally, when the silence becomes too much, he allows himself a non-committal _hmm_ and continues to stare at the food court up ahead.

“I’m not like that,” Patrick admits quietly. “I was a fat kid, then a chubby twenty-something, then I got, like, three years where I looked okay, 10 percent of my life where I didn’t look like the broad side of a barn. Do you know how hard I had to work at that? Just to be… normal?”

“You – You went to yoga,” Pete says weakly.

“ _Fuck_ yoga,” Patrick snaps viciously. “You don’t get it because you’ve never had to work at being thin – you’re the societal expectation without even trying and I’m the guy who fights with himself every time he chooses Ben and Jerry’s over broccoli and do you know _why_ I don’t make the right choice?” Pete shakes his head slowly. “Because what’s the point? Because I can deny myself and be unhappy or I can eat and _still_ be unhappy, but at least I feel better while I’m eating ice cream.”

Pete stares miserably at his shoes and feels stupid and humble. The truth is, it’s been so simple to think of Patrick’s weight as a demonstration of his moral weakness, his inability to keep his hands out of the refrigerator. Stupidly, he didn’t imagine that losing weight, or maintaining that loss, was _hard_ because it isn’t hard _for him._ He breathes deeply and listens to the muzak being piped through the mall and thinks he is the biggest fucking idiot in the north side of Chicago.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I didn’t realize. I – I won’t talk about it again, if it makes you uncomfortable. I just,” he falters and reaches and, impulsively, he grabs at Patrick’s hand and squeezes gently, “I want you to know that I think you’re fucking _gorgeous_ , you know? Whatever the label in your jeans says.”

“You don’t have to say that,” Patrick mutters.

When he speaks, his ears and the crests of his cheeks turn pink and lovely. If delivering compliments makes him flush quite so beautifully, Pete makes a private resolution to do it more often.

“I mean it,” he says. “You’re a very handsome dude. It’s basically the only reason I married you.”

And, because Patrick is soft and open and it seems as though, today, he might not get knocked back, he grasps both of Patrick’s hands in his own and pulls him back against the wall. He strokes his thumbs along the delicate skin inside of Patrick’s wrists and watches him and thinks he is so, so lucky to be allowed to do this.

“Shut up,” Patrick warns, raising his middle finger and flashing it in Pete’s direction.

“Well, that and the huge—”

 _“Thank you,_ Peter.”

“You have beautiful eyes,” Pete continues. “You also have an irresistible mouth, like, _fuck_ , who gave you those lips? They have to be an arrestable offense, sir.”

Patrick scowls sourly and turns a deeper, richer shade of red. “Fuck off.”

“I love that you gave Avery your red hair,” Pete murmurs and breaks a hand free to pet it gently.

Patrick bites into his lip and stares at their hands and looks very, very pleased.

“It’s strawberry blond, if we’re being technical.”

“Sure,” Pete laughs. “Still, that was an awesome thing for you to pass along so, good job. I love that she looks so much like you because when she smiles, it’s _your_ smile. It’s your frown and your pout and your filthy fucking temper.”

“She’s – she’s not _so_ bad,” Patrick agrees. Then he frowns and continues earnestly. “Do you… Look, I know this sounds stupid, but you _do think_ her hair’s going to grow, right? Like, you don’t think baldness is hereditary?”

“Patrick,” Pete says seriously, which is difficult when the corners of his mouth are twitching. “I genuinely _do not_ believe that you’ve sentenced her to a lifetime of looking like an egg,” Patrick scowls darkly and Pete rushes on, “But like, she makes a lovely egg, either way. The nicest little egg with legs I’ve ever seen. I think she’s totally eggcellent.”

He assumes the Wyld Stallyns pose, just to make Patrick laugh.

“You’re making it very hard for me to be mad at you,” Patrick admits as they fall back into the flow of foot traffic heading towards the bank of restaurants and coffee shops. He doesn’t let go of Pete’s hand. He doesn’t stop smiling. Pete is alight like Fourth of July in his chest.

Their sneakers squeak on the tiles. In every store window, Pete sees their reflection from the corner of his eye and he feels… happy. He feels proud. For the first time in a very long time, he begins to think of his marriage in the present tense. It’s a living, vibrant thing, pushed into hibernation by his apathy but now it feels like the long, cold winter might be starting to thaw. There are 2.7 million people in Chicago – roughly 51 percent of them male — and this man chose him.

“I’m glad,” he says quietly, and means it.

***

Patrick calls Pete midweek and he tries his best not to make it into a Big Deal.

“Wentz,” Pete says briskly.

It doesn’t sound like he looked at the phone before he picked it up. A panicked man – which Patrick is _not_ – would assume Pete is busy and find an excuse to hang up.

“Oh, hey,” Patrick stumbles. “Uh, so, you can totally say no but, like – How are you fixed for dinner tonight?”

“Um,” Pete pauses, “I think my mom said something about going out so, like, probably a sandwich and oh God, no, you’re inviting me, aren’t you? Like – At your place? Our place. The place where our kids live.”

Somewhere, probably on another blog, Patrick read something about assuming a power stance whilst talking on the phone. Apparently, it makes the speaker sound more assertive. He spreads his legs a little and straightens his shoulders, bouncing on the balls of his feet.  That’s what athletes do before a big game. Maybe. That’s _probably_ what athletes do.

“Daddy?” Harper hisses from the kitchen table. “Do you have to poop?”

Apparently, his power stance could use a little work.

“Yeah,” he says – to Pete, not Harper. “I meant here. It’s just, I made way too much lasagna and, if you wanted to, it might be… nice.”

“I see. Well, if you’d just be tossing it out, it would be a real shame to waste good lasagna,” Pete says sagely.

“Right,” Patrick agrees. “Food waste is a really big issue. Did you know that Chicagoans toss out 36 percent of everything they buy at the grocery store? That’s 17 percent more food waste than the national average.”

Pete pauses, then he says, “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, when he means _probably_. Like, it could _probably_ be true. “So, you’d be doing me _and_ the environment a huge favor, really.”

“Oh _God,”_ Caitlyn mutters at her homework. “This is embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for you.”

Patrick’s hands are shaking. This is because Patrick is an idiot whose central nervous system can’t tell the difference between a hot new date and a man who, once upon a terrible haircut, held back his hair on a windy day so he could eat a donut. He wants, very much, for Pete to say yes without making an excuse about work.

“Oh, sure,” Pete says and he sounds like he might be smiling. “In that case, count me in. Around six?”

“Sure,” Patrick says casually. “That sounds… acceptable.”

 _Acceptable?_ He bangs his head sharply off the nearest cabinet. Avery giggles and shouts, “Dada!” Patrick reevaluates his decision to make this phone call in front of his children and finds the intellect of the Patrick of two minutes ago entirely lacking.

Pete doesn’t speak but it sounds like he’s smiling. This is obviously ridiculous because all Patrick can hear is Pete’s breathing but it sounds like… _happy_ breathing. Pete is breathing _happily_ and Patrick is grinning stupidly at his children and blushing and — Oh, God. This is so fucking juvenile.

“Okay,” he says briskly. “Well, I — You should probably get on with work. And I should… make lasagna.”

“Patrick,” Pete says carefully.

“Hmm?”

“You said you already made too much lasagna.”

“Oh,” Patrick mutters. “I — I did say that, didn’t I? I meant—”

“It sounds like this whole lasagna thing is insanely complicated,” Pete says, laughing. “Since it can’t decide what stage of production it’s at and whatnot. I should let you go deal with that.”

“Yes, I’m a very busy man.”

“Cool,” Pete says, far too casually. “Cool, cool. Well, try not to create a wormhole in the kitchen. If the recipe calls for plutonium, just keep in mind that we don’t own a Delorean.”

“I — I’ll try,” Patrick agrees with much nonchalance. “It’s a — complicated recipe.”

“Seems like,” Pete says fondly. “See you tonight.”

Patrick hasn’t heard Pete sound _fond_ in years.

“Yeah,” he nods. “I — See you later.” He hangs up the phone and deliberately does not look at Caitlyn as she pretends to do her algebra. “Lasagna okay for dinner, kids?”

“Yum,” Harper declares.

“Yeah,” Noah says.

“Blaaaagh,” Avery says, very seriously.

“Daddy,” Caitlyn rolls her eyes. “You — Your flirting is _awful.”_

“I wasn’t flirting,” he lies. Badly, in case there was any doubt.

“You were flirting,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Badly.”

“My house is full of horrible, ungrateful brats,” he tells her without malice.

Noah looks up. “I’m not a _brat.”_

“Oh, please.” Patrick ruffles Noah’s hair affectionately. “You’re the brattiest brat to ever brat. You’re the Great Bratsby.”

“Hmmph,” says Noah, looking unimpressed.

Caitlyn raises an eyebrow, which makes her look so startlingly like Pete that Patrick feels it in his solar plexus. “Yeah, well, you should listen to me because that was _painful.”_

“Riiight,” Noah chirps as he resolutely ignores his homework. “What does _Jackson_ think of your flirting, Caitlyn?”

“Can we have him adopted?” Caitlyn implores.

Patrick looks at his son critically. “Honestly? Who would take him?”

“Hey!”

“I mean — He’s basically housebroken,” Caitlyn shrugs, “ _someone_ will probably want him. Maybe someone who can teach him how to flirt because, otherwise, he’s got to rely on _you.”_

“New family rule: Children who are currently failing algebra do _not_ get to comment on my conversational habits until their homework is complete _and_ they’ve told me all about _Jackson._ And, by the way, just to make one thing perfectly clear, I was _not_ flirting.”

Caitlyn sighs deeply. It’s clear she believes him not at all. “Sure, daddy. Whatever you say.”

“I’m making lasagna,” he says decisively and Avery shrieks and Harper looks bored and Noah isn’t listening and Caitlyn? Caitlyn eyes him shrewdly as he grabs an onion from the vegetable rack and slices into it with a grim sense of efficiency. “That’s all. Just lasagna.”

“Sure thing, daddy. Just lasagna.”

***

When Patrick opens the front door, he doesn’t expect to come face to face with a wall of flowers.

“Hey,” says the bouquet. “Lilacs, right?”

“Pete?” Patrick asks, somewhat concerned. “Are you in there or have I developed the ability to communicate with foliage?”

From somewhere amidst the riotous display of purple, Pete’s eyes appear. “I think foliage is just the leaves, if we’re being technical.”

“Wow,” Patrick says. “I — Okay, you and your floral friends should come inside.”

Pete follows him down the hallway and into the family room. The children are arranged along the couches in various stages of atrophy as the Disney Channel does an excellent job of substituting for actual parenting. There’s a general flurry of excitement when Pete follows him into the room. Which is fine. It’s totally _fine_ that they treat Pete’s appearance with the enthusiasm of a visiting celebrity. It’s _nice_ that they want to be around him. Patrick is not jealous at all.

“Dad!” Noah exclaims, falling over his own too-big feet in an effort to scale the back of the couch. “I missed you!”

“Buddy!” Pete says, juggling flowers and car keys and Noah hanging off his arm and Harper hanging off his leg with something close to aplomb. “I missed you, too. And, Harper! How’s my favorite girl?” Caitlyn sniffs delicately from the couch. She does not take her eyes off the TV. “I mean, uh, my — joint favorite girl. I have two favorite girls. _Three_. I have _three_ favorite girls.”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Noah, didn’t we _just_ talk about using the furniture as a climbing apparatus or am I confusing you with my _other_ eight-year-old son?”

Noah looks sheepish. “Sorry, daddy.”

Caitlyn glances up at the flowers. “Are those for daddy?”

“No,” Pete crosses to the couch and bows with much theater and, carefully, extracts a single bloom from the bouquet. “This is for you.” Caitlyn takes the flower and looks nonplussed. Pete moves down the line. “And you, and you, and _you.”_

“Uh…” Noah says, confused.

“Can I plant it?” Harper asks.

“Blat,” Avery says. She examines her flower for a moment, turning it over in her chubby little fists. “Dada!”

“Pete, maybe you shouldn’t give that to—” Avery shrieks and, before Patrick can cover the three big strides towards her, she crams it into her mouth and gums it with enthusiasm. “The Baby,” he finishes. “Oh. Too late.”

The problem is that Pete has no lived experience of dealing with the real-time reactions for four small children. It’s not his fault. Well, it _is_ his fault but he won’t learn if he isn’t allowed to make mistakes. Patrick peels lilac petals from Avery’s tongue and attempts to stop Harper from jamming the stem of her flower up her nose.

“Lilacs are _not_ toxic to pets,” Pete declares confidently.

He waves his phone in Patick’s direction, as if inviting him to double check this information for himself.

“Avery is _not_ a pet,” Patrick points out indignantly. “Maybe we should put these into a vase, before Penny gets ideas about eating them, too.”

From beneath the coffee table, Penny thumps her tail agreeably.

“He’s not going to win us over with _flowers,”_ Caitlyn hisses. Pete is in the other room, out of earshot and crashing through the kitchen cabinets in search of a vase, Noah and Harper in hot pursuit.

Patrick picks Avery up and balances her on his hip. The flowers are a nice gesture.

“I know,” he says. “But we have to let him _try,_ Caity. It’s not fair if we don’t let him try.”

After lasagna and ice cream, Noah points out he has reading to practise and Caitlyn slopes off to her room to study. Patrick clears the dishes and Pete helps, scraping plates into the trash and handing them over for Patrick to slot into the dishwasher. It’s companionable, almost easy, their reflections in the kitchen window smiling back at them.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Pete says sincerely. “And, by the way, the new shirt looks good on you.”

Patrick blushes and feels like he’s twenty again. “No problem. I — The kids miss you. A lot.”

“And you?” Pete asks quietly. “Do _you_ miss me?”

This is not a subject that is available for discussion. Patrick has bottled his feelings up, stored them in a vault and sworn not to examine them too closely. Maybe Pete’s effort is fake. Maybe Patrick is broken. Maybe none of this will be worth a damn in the long run and they’ll still find themselves petitioning the courts, caught in an acrimonious cycle of alimony and custody and property division. He shakes his head and tries to dislodge the smell of Pete’s cologne from his nose. This is so much harder to analyze critically when Pete is filling the space with his presence, when he’s acting like the husband Patrick’s wanted him to be _so badly_.

“Okay,” Patrick says, closing the dishwasher. “I’m going to read with Noah, do you think you can give the babies their bath?”

Against the refrigerator, Pete baulks. It’s not like Patrick blames him, not really, tossed into the deep end — or, not _too_ deep, for the sake of safety — and asked to deal with bathtime. Maybe they should switch jobs, Pete can sink into the couch and read with Noah because, God knows, the kid seeks his dad’s approval like other eight-year-olds seek out Pokemon. It might be nice to let them bond, to share some time together. Patrick opens his mouth to tell Pete this.

“Okay,” Pete says, gathering his courage and his youngest children and heading towards the stairs. “How hard can it be?”

Patrick suspects the term ‘famous last words’ was coined for moments like this.

Still, he can’t pretend it’s not _nice_ to be the one to collapse onto the couch after dinner. They read together, without Avery snatching at the pages or Harper demanding a story of her own. It’s not that he doesn’t adore all of his children but one-on-one time is a luxury he can’t generally afford.

When the book is finished and the room is still, Noah asks, “Is dad moving back home?”

“Uh,” Patrick says. “I — I don’t know. Definitely not tonight.”

Noah frowns. “Why not? I miss him.”

“I know you do,” Patrick says. “But missing someone doesn’t necessarily mean they should live in the same house. You told me last week you missed the shark at the aquarium. Should he live in the bathtub?”

Noah gives him a look that suggests he finds Patrick’s metaphors entirely lacking. “Dad isn’t a shark. He wouldn’t eat Penny, for one thing.”

“No,” Patrick agrees. “I suppose not, but—”

“Oh God, _Patrick!”_ Pete sounds genuinely distressed. “She’s — It’s _everywhere.”_

“Avery pooped in the bathtub again,” Noah says, with all the sage weariness of a child who has been in the tub with Avery before.

“It certainly sounds like it,” Patrick agrees affably.

“You should go help him.”

“You wouldn’t be saying this just so you can watch Teen Titans instead of doing more reading, would you?”

Noah smiles, a charming, lopsided, distinctly _Pete_ smile and grabs at the remote.

By the time Patrick makes it upstairs and into the bathroom, it is _everywhere_. There’s shit on the tub, on the tiles, on Avery’s feet and smudged on Pete’s shirt. The sidelong glance that Harper shoots him as he enters the room is far too knowing for a three-year-old.

She says, “Avery pooped. Dad doesn’t know how to clean it.”

“I told you,” Pete shrieks. “The tub is for cleaning! If the tub isn’t clean I don’t know where to clean _anything_ , this is a paradox and I’ve had no prior training!”

“Nfagh,” Avery says. She looks inordinately pleased with herself.

“It’s on _me,”_ Pete wails, holding out his hand in demonstration. “What do I do? If I clean myself first, I’ll get covered in it when I clean her. If I clean her first, then I’ll make her dirty again when I touch her. This is like that stupid logic puzzle with the chicken and the grain and the fox but the boat is made of sh—”

“Poop!” Patrick cuts him off sharply.

“Dad isn’t very good at bathtime,” Harper whispers loudly.

“Hey, listen kid, I tried! No one warned me there’d be poop.”

“I didn’t poop!” Harper says indignantly.

“No, you did not,” Pete agrees. “Which is why you’re getting Avery’s college fund.”

Patrick grins. “Baptism of fire. Or poop, I guess.” Pete glares at him. “Okay, strip down, get into the shower with Avery. I’ll clean the tub. Caitlyn? Can you dress your little sister for me, please?”

“Ugh,” Caitlyn says from the relative safety of her bedroom. “If I _have_ to.”

When Pete shrugs out of his shirt, huffing ‘ew, ew, ew, ew’ under his breath, Patrick blinks in surprise at the sight of Pete’s naked chest. Which is a truly ridiculous thing because showering can’t be done efficiently if the showeree is fully clothed; it’s obvious that Pete removing his clothing is a natural part of the showering process. Still. That’s a lot of skin and ink and hard, compact muscle Patrick wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with during bath time. His tongue feels sticky, gummed to the roof of his mouth as Pete shuffles out of his jeans and pauses in nothing but his tight boxer briefs, as he leans into the shower cubicle and adjusts the temperature of the water.

Nudity is weaponized within their relationship. Which is sad, because it used to be a cause for celebration but for years, Pete without clothes has been the harbinger of sex that’s unsatisfying at best, humiliating at worst. Now, with the safety buffer of their children and a bathtub full of things Patrick doesn’t want to think about, he can appreciate that Pete’s naked body is a gorgeous, terrifying thing.

He sucks in his dad-gut as Pete shucks off his underwear, his pubes neatly trimmed and the dark hair clinging to his chest and stomach carefully sculpted. Patrick thinks of the sandy thatch of his own pubic hair rioting its cheerful way down towards his knees, of the way the hair on his chest is edging steadily higher with each passing year, in inverse correlation to the way it thins on his head.

Fat, hairy, balding; what a catch. God, he should be grateful that Pete ever wanted to fuck him _at all._

“Baby,” Pete says, wet and gorgeous from the shower spray.

“Yeah?” Patrick asks absently.

“No,” Pete shakes his head and points at Avery. “Uh, I meant, you know, hand me the baby? But like, I can call you baby, too, if you like? Hand me the baby, baby.”

“Oh,” Patrick fumbles to do so, his face hot. “Yeah, right — uh. Of course. Just — Like, put your arm under her butt and — Yep. That’ll do it.”

So, Patrick cleans the tub and doesn’t look at Pete in the shower and doesn’t smile to himself with just the corners of his mouth as Pete begins to croon ‘my baby pooped in the bathtub’ to the tune of My Baby Takes the Morning Train. If Patrick is to be subjected to this Tom Selleck, Three Men and a Baby nonsense, he needs a moment of privacy in which to deal with it.

“You can’t sing,” he calls out, bursting with the need to say something. “Like, at all. I’m very embarrassed on your behalf.”

 _“You_ can sing,” Pete says cheerfully, not even squealing as Avery grabs his soapy nipple and nips into it with her impossibly sharp baby fingernails. “You’ve always been the singer, hasn’t he, baby girl? Daddy should sing for us.”

But singing is like playing the guitar and Patrick isn’t ready for that yet. Plus, there’s something hard and bright behind Patrick’s breastbone, caging the beat of his heart as he chews over the sound of Pete calling Avery ‘baby girl’ with unbridled affection. It makes his throat ache, a casual reminder of their first apartment, of Pete and Caitlyn in the tub together while Patrick sang to them.

He smiles instead. “Not tonight, you couldn’t handle the awesome. Anyway, I’m all done here, I’ll go lay out her pajamas and grab you some clean clothes.”

“Sounds good,” Pete says.

He goes right back to singing.

Once he’s out of the room and out of earshot and out of reach of that dark, dangerous curl of a smile that Pete does so well, Patrick hums along with him. He doesn’t take a moment to look uncertainly at their bed, or to think about the way Pete looks behind the fogged up glass, hazy and cut with lithe muscle under all of that ink. He doesn’t think about Pete pushing him over the mattress and biting at his mouth, licking past his teeth and then sliding down, over his chest, tugging at his jeans, his mouth wet and red and messy.

No. Those are things he definitely doesn’t think about. He catches sight of himself in the mirror, sweaty and pink, his hair a spiky mess and tufting unattractively over his ears.

“You’re ridiculous,” he tells his reflection.

His reflection, for the most part, looks as though he agrees.

 


	10. Chapter 10

The whole family dinner thing gets Pete thinking. Which is miraculous, really, because it’s not like he hasn’t seen Patrick devoting hours to making sure everyone is fed in the past. It’s not just the cooking, either. It’s the planning, it’s the fact that Harper won’t eat anything that looks like a vegetable and Noah doesn’t like cheese and Caitlyn is experimenting with vegetarianism and Avery only has like… a quarter of the necessary teeth to handle anything tougher than jello, her little sea urchin mouth hoovering up globs of roughly pureed guck like a tiny red-headed bottom feeder. Then there’s the grocery shopping and the preparation and the clean-up and then a couple hours until the whole thing starts all over again. Honestly, it’s something of a miracle that Pete’s failed to notice how… _complex_ it is to ensure everyone receives enough calories, vitamins and minerals to prevent starvation and/or scurvy _._

In response to this newfound respect for Patrick’s abilities, Pete scours Yelp for culinary schools and books a class.

“Patisseries and confections?” Gabe says dubiously, reading through the confirmation email on Pete’s phone.

Pete nods enthusiastically. “It’s a macaron class. He _loves_ macarons.”

Gabe remains unconvinced. “Is that — I’m not sure that constitutes a date. In fact, it seems more like community service.”

“Have you thought about buying him some macarons and then taking him on an actual date?” Will asks from the far side of the kitchen island. He’s applying tiling compound to kitchen tiles like he knows what he’s doing. Pete is, ostensibly, helping but he has much the same knowledge of tiling as he has of making macarons. He smears a little over the tiles and takes a step back to admire his handiwork.

“William,” he says grandly. “It’s like they say: Buy a man a macaron and he might suck your dick for an evening. Learn how to _make_ macarons for that man, and he’ll blow you for eternity.”

“Who says that?” Will asks suspiciously. “Name one person who says that.”

“My husband,” Pete says absently, adding a swirl to his compound. “He says it all the time.”

“I’ve never heard him say that,” Will says.

Pete raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look up. “Do you even _know_ Patrick?”

“Are you drawing _dicks_ on my kitchen tiles?” Gabe barks.

“Yes,” Pete confirms.

“Is that – Did you add the fucking _ejaculate?”_

“You insulted my killer date idea then gave me black compound and white tiles,” Pete points out, adding a couple of pubic hairs for good measure. “Honestly, are you even surprised that this is the result?”

Will appears with a cloth drenched in something that smells like it could knock a man out at ten paces. The start of his sentence is muffled but it ends with “… Pete fucking _Wentz_ , of course, like a fucking _child.”_

“Nice detailing on the balls,” says Gabe, nodding sagely.

“The pubes really make it,” Pete agrees. William wipes it from the wall anyway. “You’re not very _fun,_ for someone who married Gabe Saporta, you know that, Will.”

“My tolerance for bullshit is reserved exclusively for my husband now,” Will snaps. “Patrick can probably relate.”

It’s a low blow. Pete winces a little at the sting of it. Then he remembers Patrick’s eyes on him as he showered off with Avery, the hungry slash of his mouth as Pete kicked off his underwear and stepped under the spray. The unhurried way he leaned into Pete’s side at the end of the night, all soft and warm and smelling of baby powder and fabric softener. Love is not a Leonard Cohen song, it doesn’t have to be intense and dark and ever-needing. Sometimes love is loading the dishwasher without being asked. It’s putting the baby to bed and reading the toddler a second bedtime story and feeling the solid warmth of your husband against you on the couch for a minute or two. Sometimes it’s just like that.

“I’m trying, you know,” he says quietly.

Will glares at him, his tiles clean, and then he softens. “I know you are. It’s sweet.”

“Do you think he’ll hate the class?” Pete asks.

It’s very important to Pete that Patrick doesn’t hate the class. So far, he’s been attempting to trade on nostalgia, hauling out the date equivalent of a photograph album and hoping that Patrick can still imagine the two of them recreating each shot. This time, he’s sending a message for the future: He can be better, he can try harder, he can make Patrick _happy._

Will, perhaps sensing this, puts an arm around his shoulders and squeezes. “I think he’ll love it. Just try not to make better macarons than he does, you know he’s a bitch when someone outpaces him at something he’s good at.”

“Can hardly make grilled cheese,” Pete points out. His voice is thick and pained. “Can hardly open the bread with which to make the grilled cheese. I don’t think I’m going to dazzle him with my ability to make fancy French cookies.”

“Meringues,” says Gabe absently.

“No, _your_ mom,” Pete snaps back.

“No, you idiot, _meringues,_ not cookies, and _definitely_ not your mom.”

“Oh.” Pete stares at his hands for a moment. “Could someone get me another beer, or are you trying to dehydrate me?”

Across the kitchen, Gabe and Will share a look. It is a very significant look. It’s the kind of look that means someone is about to say something very serious and, based on the way they raise their eyebrows threateningly at one another, there is some disagreement about who is going to say it first.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Gabe says. Pete braces himself. “I… think Will has something he’d like to say to you.”

“Fuck _you_ , asshole,” Will yelps. “He’s _your_ best friend. _You_ tell him!”

This is how Pete _knows_ that whatever they have to say, he’s going to leave the conversation at least fractionally insulted. It’s like sitting in the front row of a log flume: _you will get pissed, you may get slammed._

“The suspense is killing me,” Pete says, through gritted teeth. Neither Will, nor Gabe, move or speak or even appear to _breathe_. “Did – have I done something wrong? Is this about Patrick?”

“The thing is...” Gabe begins, very slowly. Will scowls at him with real venom and he accelerates wildly. “The thing is we’ve been talking about it and Will has been talking to Patrick and I honestly told him not to, but he wouldn’t listen to me and now I feel like I’m the bad guy, but the upshot is that we all sort of think that maybe you’re possibly kind of drinking too much.”

In the silence that follows, Gabe sucks in a very deep breath and Pete blinks owlishly and the clock on the wall ticks very loudly. To break down the runaway sentence into its constituent parts, it appears that clandestine conversations have been held behind his back. Recces with his husband – who will barely talk to him about anything but the most mundane details of his day – by two of his best friends. And the upshot, the grand culmination of this back-stabbing scheming, is that everyone has decided, unilaterally and without consultation, that Pete is just about ready to sign up for AA. Which, _for the record_ , he is not.

Fuck this. Fuck absolutely _all_ of this.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” he snaps.

“Look, no one said ‘alcoholic’,” Will begins soothingly. “Come on, try to be reasonable about this, we’re just worried.”

“Don’t try to fucking _soothe_ me,” Pete says. God, this is not the reaction he imagined to a simple request for a bottle of Miller Lite. He clenches his jaw until his teeth ache, curls his hands into fists like he can choke the fury out of his chest. “This is bullshit. Absolute bullshit.”

“We’re all concerned that you’re using alcohol as a crutch,” Gabe continues, encouraging like he’s Mr Miyagi. “We think that you’re depending on it more than you should.”

“I _know_ what a crutch is.” Pete scowls at the reclaimed granite countertop and experiences no desire whatsoever to be Daniel san. “I am so far from done with this conversation,” he says. “I only asked for a beer.”

“Look,” Will snaps, because Will is the kind of friend who believes in tough love to balance out the lolloping Labrador friendliness of his husband. “Here’s the thing, hotshot, you’ve spent the past few years getting drunk off your ass instead of spending time with your family. Gabe is the kind of idiot who’s encouraged this behavior because it means he has a drinking buddy when he needs one—”

“Hey!” Gabe says, then ponders for a moment. “Okay, fair.”

“But I’m not here to kiss your ass and tell you it’s ice cream,” Will continues. “You have a drinking problem and, if you’re not quite an alcoholic yet, then you damn well could be. So, no, Pete. I won’t be getting you a beer, and you should give it some serious thought before you go and get one for yourself.”

The kitchen is quiet and still, a center of the storm eeriness as Pete stares at his hands and Gabe stares at the wall and Will stares at Pete, shrewd and furious and daring him to back down. It’s a lot to take in, is all, hard to process the idea that anyone thinks he has a problem, an _issue_ , a _weakness_. Pete doesn’t like to be weak. He also doesn’t like to be wrong and so he takes a long, slow breath, the kind he practises at work when Butch is pushing every button he has with devastating precision, and then he looks up and he smiles, big and wide.

“Okay,” he says, “in that case, can I have a glass of water? I’m not like, an expert or anything, but I think if I’m tiling your kitchen — _for free_ — that you’re legally obliged to make sure I don’t dehydrate.”

The tension bleeds from the room like an opened aorta, staining the pristine tiles and splashing up the dove grey cabinets. Gabe laughs and cracks a dirty joke, Will smiles and parries it right back. But he doesn’t stop looking at Pete.

Pete feels like he’s made of glass, visible and exposed, like Will is seeing right into the dark, astral decay that lurks inside of him like a bad star. They go back to tiling and work to the sound of the record player, debating the relative merits of grunge versus post-punk. They hold a whole conversation in Morrissey quotes and deliberately avoid the issue of Pete’s alleged drinking problem.

“I think he’ll like the macarons,” Will says firmly, kissing Pete on the cheek as he shrugs into his jacket and hunts for his car keys. “Look, don’t tell him I told you this, but I think you’re on the right track with him, he really seems to be coming around to the idea of taking you back.”

Pete is cold suddenly, shivering on the front steps even though it’s almost summer. He shrugs and says, “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Will pats his shoulder. “He loves you, you’re lucky he still does. Do _not_ fuck this up.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Pete says, saluting with his car keys. This is funnier than it ought to be with Will standing there in his navy and white striped shirt and faded leather waistcoat, like an eighteenth-century mutineer.

He drives home and listens to Morrissey as the highway ribbons its way out to Wilmette. It’s after ten but his mom hasn’t locked him out, instead there’s a pile of his shirts that he was going to deal with tomorrow stacked neatly at the end of his bed, a note on top that says _thank you for mowing the lawn._ The simplicity of reciprocated kindness is sort of overwhelming. So, he calls Patrick and smiles at the sleepy way he slurs through the details of his day for ten minutes, until the yawning gets too much, and Pete says, fondly, “You should get to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. “I — goodnight.”

“Night,” Pete says softly. “I love you.”

Patrick pauses. Then he says, “I’m — looking forward to Saturday.”

Pete grins. “Me too.”

And this time, he is.

***

“A cooking course?” Patrick says dubiously, eyeing the inauspicious shop front that Yelp assures Pete, via the medium of a litany of five-star reviews, is going to transform him into the next Anthony Bourdain.

 _“Patisserie,”_ Pete corrects him. Patrick immediately corrects him right back, rolling the word around his mouth absently. The syllables of it stick to the pink of his tongue like warm honey. It’s so difficult not to get distracted when Patrick is endlessly distracting. “Whatever, it’s fancy French stuff. You _love_ fancy French stuff.”

“Pete,” Patrick says evenly, his hands shoved into his pockets. “You know we have four children, yes?”

“I am vaguely aware of them,” Pete nods.

“And do you know how much ‘fancy French stuff’ they enjoy eating?” Patrick asks. It’s what Pete believes those in the business refer to as a _loaded question_.

“I would like, very much, for you to tell me all about the fancy French stuff you’ve been feeding them,” he deadpans. “I would like that more than just about anything else I can think of right now.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says, pondering. There’s a tiny shaving nick under his jaw, a shocking crease of red against the pale of his skin. Pete wants to kiss it. “Okay, so they’re big fans of _pomme frites_. And _crêpes,_ they’re pretty fond of those, especially with chocolate and strawberries. Oh, and _pain au chocolat.”_

“See?” Pete grins. “Our children enjoy a very international diet.”

Patrick gives him a look, sniffs once and then says, “What I’m saying is, don’t you think a basic cookery course might have been more… your level? How to make toast, how to boil an egg, how to cook packet mac and cheese without murdering your family, that sort of thing.”

“I can make toast!” Pete objects. “I can make the best damn toast in Chicago! I used to make you toast when we were in college and you said it was the most amazing toast you’d ever eaten.”

“Or you could’ve asked me, if you want to learn how to cook,” Patrick continues, clearly unwilling to debate Pete’s superior toast-making skills. “I’m pretty good and — _oh my God_ , are those macarons?”

“They _are,”_ Pete agrees, herding Patrick across the room and to the sign in sheet. “Which, by the way, are _meringues_ and not cookies. Just in case you were wondering.”

“Google or Will?” Patrick asks, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t give me that look, I know you found that out from one or the other.”

Pete looks hurt. “What do you mean? I’m a fancy French food aficionado. I could creme you a brulee or vin you up coq, just like _that.”_

Patrick looks unconvinced but signs their names and takes the complimentary aprons and steers Pete towards one of the cooking stations with a look on his face not dissimilar to a small child on Christmas morning. His hands are reverent as he touches the stand mixer in the center of the Bake Off-style kitchen island, his mouth moving silently, _wow wow wow_ , over and over again. It’s large and red and shiny and terrifyingly intimidating.

“You like?” Pete asks.

Patrick beams at him. “It’s a Kitchenaid,” he says, as though Pete should have any idea what that means. “God, I’ve wanted one of these puppies for a long time. Look at it! Have you ever seen anything this _gorgeous?”_

 _Yes,_ Pete thinks, as Patrick’s eyes sparkle, and his cheeks flush and he bites into his bottom lip so gleefully. The impulsive urge is there to kiss him, to lean across the scrubbed oak countertop and taste the infectious edges of his smile.

Apparently, a bright red Kitchenaid inspires honesty and Pete leans closer and murmurs, sticky and sweet as melted sugar, into Patrick’s ear, “God, I really want to kiss you.”

The room hums on around them. Patrick blushes and smiles down at the countertop as he secures his apron and checks the ingredients laid out on the bench. “Confectioners’ sugar,” he murmurs pointlessly, picking up the bag and studying it with visible concentration, his smile lines creasing the corners of his eyes, his lush, full mouth pursed. Pete has forgotten how to breathe, his knuckles white against the dark apron around his waist. If Patrick intends to tell him to fuck off, he’s really drawing it out, which seems very unfair when Pete just… he _does_ want to kiss him, and doesn’t Patrick want honesty? Then, with Pete’s heart roaring in his ears and his lungs burning, Patrick leans across the twelve inches or so of dead space between them and brushes his lips sweetly against Pete’s cheek, right at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh,” Pete says, on the rush of stale air pushed from his lungs with his gasp. He touches the spot that Patrick kissed and swears it feels warmer.

“Is that what you meant,” Patrick asks, his voice dark. Pete’s stomach swoops. “Or do you want to kiss me other places?”

“I will buy you a hundred Kitchenaids, if you kiss me again,” Pete promises him, his mouth tingling. “A _thousand,_ if you like. We’ll fill the whole house.”

Patrick smiles, faint and crooked. “Look at you,” he murmurs. “Getting all giddy over a kiss on the cheek.”

He looks so unabashedly fuckable, pink and lovely and precisely how Pete remembers him on his back, his dick soft against his thigh and his belly wet with his own come, his toes curled as Pete fucked him and fucked him and _fucked him_ down into their bed. In his pants, Pete’s dick gives an inappropriate shiver of approval. And God, Pete’s going to kiss him, he’s going to bite that soft, pink mouth and taste his tongue, to fist his hair and press him back against the countertop until he’s gasping. Patrick holds his look, level and unruffled but so unashamedly _gorgeous._ It’s a good look. It burns Pete’s skin with its intent.

“Okay, are we ready to make some macarons?” calls their teacher from their position at the front of the room. Pete jumps, because it’s loud and his concentration is pinned on Patrick’s mouth and he is terrible at multitasking.

He has never been less prepared to make fancy French cookies. But Patrick picks up an electric whisk with measured intent and pats his own ass gently, leaving a white, sugary handprint behind like a target. Now, Pete has a distracting reason to stare at Patrick’s ass, the denim-clad loveliness of it under his jeans, the rolling hill lushness of it that Pete wants to fit his face to. It is now, with its sugary dusting, the literal and figurative definition of a _sweet, sweet ass._ God, he’s going to masturbate himself into a _coma_ once he gets home tonight. Like he can read minds, Patrick waggles his eyebrows playfully; Pete reminds himself that the human body generally responds well to oxygen and sucks in a sharp breath.

“Come on then,” Patrick says, shoving a mixing bowl into Pete’s hands. “Impress me.”

 _Good luck,_ Pete thinks.

***

“Stiff peaks,” says the teacher as she walks between the island stations inspecting mixing bowls. A grandmotherly lady wearing a name tag that reads Celeste, she looks exactly like the kind of person who gets a real kick out of helping idiots make macarons. “We’re looking for lovely stiff peaks.”

Beside him, Pete snorts into his bowl once more. There are tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, his face unnaturally red as he bites his lip and shakes with the effort of remaining silent. There is more laughter snot in his meringue mix than Patrick really wants to think about. He rolls his eyes.

“You’re an actual child, you know?” he says.

“Stiff — peaks,” Pete wheezes. “And she says it _so much._ Oh God, that’s — How are you not finding that hilarious?”

“Oh no,” says Celeste, walking into something she does not understand and examining the contents of Pete’s bowl. “No, no, no, _Pete,”_ she squints at his name label, “this isn’t stiff enough _at all_. These peaks are _limp_ and _floppy_ ,” Pete turns a violent shade of puce, his blood vessels straining visibly, a strangled _hnngh_ escaping the corner of his mouth, “they need to be _nice_ and _stiff._ Look at Patrick’s.”

Obediently, Patrick creates a peak of meringue in the center of his bowl and gives Pete a significant look.

“Aren’t Patrick’s peaks _gorgeous_ and _stiff?”_ she declares.

Pete erupts. Like a dam, he bursts, collapsing over the countertop to wheeze into his bowl.

“Oh _God,”_ Pete gasps, between high little _nee-nee-nee_ noises in the back of his throat. “Patrick, honey, you have the _best_ peaks. They’re — Jesus — they’re so _stiff._ I can only dream of — of — Oh _God...”_

With that, Pete wilts over his mixing bowl once more, weeping into sugar and egg white. Celeste looks at him, baffled. She raises her eyes and looks at Patrick. Patrick looks back at her, deadpan, and shrugs. He has dealt with embarrassing children for over a decade. This is a cakewalk.

“He gets like this sometimes,” he informs her in a theatrical whisper. “His therapist says the only way to deal with it is to get him out around other people. Late-stage socialization, that’s what she calls it. It’s very sad, really.”

“Oh,” says Celeste, visibly concerned.

Against the counter, Pete shows signs of impending recovery, blinking and rubbing at his eyes as he giggles quietly. Patrick strikes.

“Mostly, I think he’s just jealous of how stiff my peaks are.”

Pete snorts once more, clutching his stomach and switching between giggling insensibly and whimpering “ow, ow, ow, stop, it hurts.” Celeste looks at him, thoroughly bewildered and Patrick decides that it’s probably best to allow Pete to take an actual breath before he passes out cold on the kitchen floor and Patrick is forced to explain to a sexy, uniformed EMT that his husband suffered a respiratory arrest because of the words ‘stiff peaks.’ It’s not the sort of thing he wants to share with his mother when he gets back to Glenview and picks up the kids.

“He’s okay,” Patrick assures Celeste. “We just have to give him a minute to remember he’s _forty years old next month.”_

That sobers Pete up remarkably quickly. “Go to hell, I could pass for thirty any day of the week.”

“In your dreams, old man,” Patrick informs him crisply.

Celeste moves on gratefully. Patrick hauls Pete upright by the back of his belt and steadies him against the countertop. Pete is red-eyed and red-cheeked and red-lipped and utterly enchanting. Patrick is so hopelessly charmed, so effortlessly wooed by this laughing-mouthed lunatic that he dips his finger into the sugar packet and wipes a smear across Pete’s mouth because, he knows, if he doesn’t do something with those lips, he’s going to kiss them. He’s beginning to forget why that might be a bad idea.

“Come here,” he says instead, shoving Pete’s mixing bowl to one side. “You can share mine.”

Pete smiles weakly. “But then you won’t get to laugh at me.”

“I remain confident that I’ll be presented with new and exciting opportunities to laugh at you in the future,” Patrick says fondly, tipping in the sugar and almond flour. “And in the meantime, you can learn from the master. Fold these in — _gently,_ please. You’re not a construction worker and this is not cement.”

“Yeah,” Pete agrees softly. “The future, right. But, you’ve got to admit, I’d make a hot as hell construction worker, you’d _love_ to handle my tool… belt.”

“Oh God,” Patrick mutters, his face very hot and his hands very unsteady and his eyes — very much against orders — flicking down to Pete’s crotch. Where he can see _absolutely_ _nothing_ because Pete is wearing underwear, pants _and_ a full-length apron. “You’re gross.”

Pete’s smile is dark as bitter chocolate and just as sweet. He looks at Patrick like he knows exactly where he was looking, like he can decode Patrick’s hot flush and see the dirty thoughts of a sweaty, desperate little man who hasn’t been touched — hasn’t _wanted_ to be touched — in long enough that the fantasy feels foreign. Patrick wants to luxuriate in the idea of wanting Pete without any expectations, wants to roll around in the soft, spongy way it makes him feel. Instead, he takes Pete’s hand and guides him carefully through the difficult folding process.

He does a terrible job of folding the ingredients, but Patrick forgives him for the way his hand, arm, hips tingle from the contact.

***

“You’re supposed to let them rest!” Pete objects from the kitchen. “The lady said 24 hours to really maximise the texture, so if you could just… Noah, four is too many, you just brushed your… Did you honestly just cram four _whole_ macarons into your mouth? Oh my God, who _raised_ you?”

“You,” Noah points out. At least, that’s what he probably says. With a mouthful of many macarons, it just sounds like _umph._

“That’s — okay, that’s fair, but like _jeez,_ you could at least close your mouth.”

In the living room, Patrick is feeding a drooping Avery, his free arm curled around Harper as they read a bedtime story together. Caitlyn is playing on her phone and tucked into his other side, very much not listening to the story, because she is far too grown up, far too _glamorous_ , to pay attention to bedtime books for babies, thank you very much. It doesn’t matter that it’s Alice in Wonderland, that her dad used to read it to her endlessly when she was Harper’s age, she is not a baby any more. Still, Patrick smiles as she pulls a little closer to him, tipping her head against his chest. Perhaps there’s still a moment or two of childhood for her to hold onto, he thinks, nudging his cheek against the crown of her head gently. Maybe she doesn’t have to grow up just yet.

“Boring!” Noah declares, scaling the back of the couch and collapsing against Patrick’s shoulder.

“Unlike the many scintillating books you’ve written,” Patrick says.

“What’s a scintillating?”

“Come back when you know, then you can call this one boring.”

He is framed entirely by children who smell of shampoo and fresh laundry. It is a truly lovely place to be. So lovely, in fact, that it would be hard to name a place more wonderful. Then Pete follows and slides down between his legs, sitting on the floor with his back to the couch and his head tipped onto Patrick’s knee. Idly, he reaches up and squeezes Avery’s tiny foot and she sighs, content, and spits out her bottle.

Yes. This is lovelier.

“I should get the babies to bed,” Patrick says.

“I’ll do it,” says Pete, climbing to his feet and lifting them, one with each arm like he’s showing off.

“He’s doing… okay,” Caitlyn says, squeezing Patrick’s arm and looking up at him with Pete’s eyes.

“He is,” Patrick agrees quietly.

When Pete returns he doesn’t sit on the floor. Instead, he situates himself on the couch with the utmost insouciance, an arm draped casually along the back, his fingers tickling teasingly at the back of Noah’s neck. There’s a soda in his hand instead of a beer which is strange, as a couple of bottles of IPA still lurk, abandoned, in the back of the fridge.

“What are we watching?” he asks, as Patrick scrolls through Netflix. “Ooh! Ghostbusters!”

“It might scare them,” Patrick says, which is the wrong thing to say because, of course, both of his children set about informing him that they have never feared anything in their _lives,_ thank you very much.

“I’m _eleven,”_ Caitlyn points out, like she’s actually saying 42. Like fear comes with an age-related expiration date.

“I’m not scared,” Noah declares. “I watched Goosebumps and I only had to go in daddy’s bed, like, _once.”_

“They’ve never watched Ghostbusters?” Pete sounds aghast.

“You say that like you’re accusing me of never brushing their teeth,” Patrick says.

“Sometimes, he doesn’t brush our teeth,” Noah whispers to Pete.

“Sometimes, you run away, and I tell you that it’s _your_ future ability to chew,” Patrick says. “My teeth are _fine. I’m_ not going to sentence myself to an old age of eating nothing but pudding pots.”

“I like pudding pots,” says Noah.

“Anyway,” Caitlyn interrupts. “Are we watching the movie or not?”

“Don’t worry,” Pete tells her. “I’ll educate you on all of the _good_ movies.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says and closes his eyes because watching those three, dark heads bent together in conspiracy is making the back of his throat hurt. “You’ll be sorry when I run away and find a new, better family.”

They watch Ghostbusters and the kids adore it and Pete holds his hand under the cover of a throw pillow and whispers all his favorite lines into Patrick’s ear. It’s intense, as far as family movies of the mid-80s go, and Patrick is dry-mouthed and fuzzy by the time the credits roll. Noah is already asleep, and Pete carries him upstairs easily. Caitlyn is not, and Patrick guides her to her room firmly; this is already a late night, he doesn’t want to find her under the covers and hiding her laptop.

“I liked the movie,” she tells him, as he pulls her blanket up to her chin and kisses her forehead. “Dad made a good choice.”

He pauses, perched on the edge of her mattress and looks at her carefully. “Do you like having him around again?”

“It’s fine,” she tells him sincerely. “It’s — he’s making you happy, isn’t he?”

“Not the question,” Patrick points out. “How does it make _you_ feel?”

“It’s good,” she says eventually, closing her eyes because she’s also good at feigning sleep to avoid conversation. “You look happy.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says again, and kisses her once more. “We’ll talk about it more tomorrow,” he assures her, “but goodnight for now. Love you. Sleep tight.”

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” she says, like they always do.

Downstairs, he finds Pete on the couch. He’s stretched out, his t-shirt riding up just enough that his thoroughly ridiculous bartskull is hinted at between his hip bones. One arm is curled over his head, the other with his palm flat against his stomach, fingers splayed. His eyes are closed but it’s clear he’s not sleeping, his fingers swiping rhythmically through the ends of his hair. God, he is so handsome, in this and every incarnation Patrick’s seen from a skinny jean and guyliner wearing scene kid with an addiction to his GHDs to this glorious mess of designer labels and terrible fashion choices. Patrick’s mouth is dry, his pulse humming as he pauses in the doorway. From the couch, Pete opens his eyes and blinks at him, his amber eyes endless.

This is not a drill.

Patrick folds his arms, because he’s not sure what to do with them and at least it stops him from compulsively snatching at Pete’s pants. “I — I really want to kiss you,” he admits, his stomach lurching. “It’s been — Today has been full of very inappropriate thoughts about your mouth.”

Pete smiles slowly, that mouth tipping up at the corners all louche and debauchable. He runs the pink tip of his tongue across his lower lip in an act of outright war and doesn’t move an inch beyond spreading his legs slightly.

“I suppose you should get over here, then,” he says, his voice thick and rough and sweet.

“The kids have just gone to bed,” Patrick says, like he’s objecting, even as he moves across the room and pauses, Pete stretched out below him. “We definitely shouldn’t do anything that might scar them for life if they come downstairs.”

Pete’s fingers sink into Patrick’s belt buckle. He pulls him down on top of him and God, _God,_ he’s so hot, burning up through his t-shirt and scorching Patrick’s skin. He barely moves, resting his hands into the damp, sweaty bowl of Patrick’s back and massaging lightly. Gently, and with absolute care, he reaches up and presses a soft, sweet kiss to the corner of Patrick’s mouth. Pete is smiling and staring at him and Patrick has been tricked, lured into this moment once more but so hopelessly happy to be here.

“Kissing is good,” Pete assures him. The breath from his mouth is warm against Patrick’s chin. His hand creeps up and sinks into Patrick’s hair, just behind his ear. “Why would you want to protect _anyone_ from how amazing it is to be kissed?”

“I’ve forgotten,” Patrick admits. “You should remind me. That’s what a good husband would do.”

Pete fingers dip daringly beneath the waist of Patrick’s jeans, his legs spreading comfortably so that Patrick can settle between them. He ought to apologise for crushing Pete, he ought to suck in his stomach and tilt his jaw a little so that Pete’s isn’t horrified by the sight of his double chin. “I…” he begins, bracing back to do just that. But Pete makes a fist in his hair, tugs him down rough and precise and kisses him hungrily. “Oh,” Patrick breathes instead, which does nothing more than open his mouth and allow Pete to tease inside with his tongue.

Pete’s mouth is exquisite. Truly, it is. Patrick groans and responds and wraps one hand around Pete’s skinny hip and buries the other in the thick, coarse weight of his hair. Slowly, Pete sucks on Patrick’s bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth, worrying gently with the grazing threat of his teeth. When he lets go, Patrick’s mouth is swollen, his cock more so, the world spinning around them as he sinks his hips down and gives a long, slow pull of his groin against Pete’s.

“Jesus, Trick,” Pete gasps, his head thrown back, his dick impossibly hard under his sweats. “God, the things you make me want to do…”

He leans up once more, sucks Patrick’s throat until it’s tender, teetering on a bruise. He ought to stop him, to point out that the kids will see in the morning, that it’s hardly the weather for polo shirts and scarves but it feels so good, he leans into it, instead.

“Kiss me,” Patrick begs, breathing hard into the hollow of Pete’s throat. “God, never stop kissing me.”

“I did kiss you,” Pete points out with a breathy, desperate laugh. “I just did, and we need to stop.”

“No, no, no,” Patrick murmurs, pushing his dick into Pete’s groin, feeling the answering hardness and salivating at the thought of turning this into a long, slow blowjob. The couch, the bed, the kitchen floor, it doesn’t matter. “No, you need to keep kissing me.”

“If I keep kissing you, other things are going to happen,” Pete whispers, his breath a quiver against Patrick’s urgent pulse.

“Good,” says Patrick, with feeling. _“Good.”_

“Oh fuck,” Pete groans, his hands edacious against Patrick’s hips, rubbing under his shirt and crackling static along his skin. “You have no idea how badly I want to, but not tonight.”

Patrick, realizing that Pete means it and he is not going to be kissed any further, sits up slowly and rests a throw pillow over his obvious erection. He’s a little embarrassed if he’s honest, a little humiliated in his neediness. Pete laughs once more, throaty and delighted, and pulls the cushion away. When he examines the obvious curve of Patrick’s cock under his jeans, it twitches joyfully in response.

“God, Trick,” Pete murmurs. It’s nice to hear the nickname. “Look at you.”

“You could,” he points out plaintively. “You could do so much more than look, if you’d just—”

“Not yet,” Pete shakes his head. “Next time, maybe, but not yet. We’re just — we’re making progress, aren’t we? We’re really getting somewhere?”

Patrick sulks. “I fail to see how a blowjob could possibly make things worse.”

“It’s not right,” Pete insists stubbornly. “Not yet.”

He climbs to his feet and begins hunting for his car keys. “You could stay for a while,” Patrick offers, wondering where it is Pete needs to be in such a hurry and hoping it’s in no way related to the pack of condoms in his overnight bag. “You don’t have to leave right away.”

“We both know what’ll happen if I stay,” Pete says, kissing Patrick’s forehead gently. “I’m trying to do this right.”

“You’re terrible at seduction,” Patrick says plaintively, his erection still obvious.

Pete arches an eyebrow in its direction. “I can see that,” he says drily. Then he kisses Patrick’s mouth, sweet and soft. “Wait until you see what I have planned for date number six. You’re going to be so stoked you waited.”

“My breath is bated,” Patrick says, kissing him back.

“I love you,” Pete says from the doorway, with his sharp, mischievous smile.

Patrick smiles back wanly. “Drive carefully.”

The door closes and the Audi roars to life on the driveway. Funny how the sound of it, the way its headlights spider across the family room ceiling as Pete reverses out onto the road, none of it makes Patrick feel tight and bitter with resentment any more. Slowly, he climbs to his feet and hobbles to the bathroom, easing down his zipper before the door is entirely locked and freeing the heavy weight of his erection.

“Fuck you, Pete Wentz,” he murmurs softly, taking himself carefully in hand. It’s been a while, the low, slow knot of tension building golden in his groin.

He doesn’t last particularly long. He thinks Pete would find that kind of hot.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been two years to the day since I posted my first Peterick fic on AO3. What's really special, for me anyway, is that this update not only marks that anniversary but also marks the one million word mark for me. One million words of Peterick in two years - a good proportion of which are probably "cock" and variants thereof.
> 
> I love you guys so very much for reading those words, for those who commented on them, for those who left kudos or left notes on tumblr. That was the first million - here's to the next!

_Family date_ , Pete text Patrick, halfway through the week and with the sum total of Martha Stewart’s al fresco dining recipes bookmarked in his iPad, _you, me and our monsters, Gillson Park on Saturday._

 _Sounds great,_ Patrick replied and just like that, Pete had a Date Number Six. The fact that he’s made it beyond Date Number Two is astounding. Miraculous. _Astonishing._ Pete is astonished. And grateful. There are a lot of verbs involved in his feelings surrounding the whole dating situation.

Now, he’s pulling into their subdivision, the picnic basket loaded up in the trunk of the car. He’s spent far more time making food than he ever imagined possible, he’s even found a blanket and bought a dozen different beach games from Target. The kids are going to think he’s amazing. Hell, _he_ thinks he’s amazing. He is genuinely excited to share this with Patrick.

He pulls onto the driveway and prepares his Embarrassing Dad playlist for the drive back out to Wilmette. He checks his hair in the rearview mirror and smooths a hand down over his shirt. There are honest-to-God _butterflies_ in his stomach. Big ones. Like the ones in the botanic garden that freak him out with their huge flappy wings and unerring tendency to aim for his face. He tucks his sunnies up into his hair and climbs out of the car, bounding for the front door spaced out with the anticipation of how truly, epically awesome this date is going to be.

Years from now, schoolchildren will study this date, that’s how amazing it is. Relationship experts will cite it in journals and publications as the very height of dating sophistication. It will be spoken about in hushed tones by serious men in expensive universities.

It’s going to rock _so hard_ , is what he’s saying.

“Hey, is everyone ready for action-packed day of Stump-Wentz adventure?” he calls out as he steps into the hall. “You know it’s going to be twice as good when there are twice as many last names!”

Patrick, not to be outdone, appears from the living room and says, “Oh, good, you’re here. I think I have shit in my hair. Can you check for me?”

It’s not the greeting he was expecting.

“Um,” he says, poking gingerly through the fine, sandy hair that flops over Patrick’s brow. “No, I — I think you’re good. But, like, _why_ would you have shit in your hair?”

“Avery has stomach flu,” Patrick sighs. “Actually, uh, _everyone_ has it. Aside from me, which means it’s like, basically an inevitability, the amount of baby drool I consume in the average day makes sure of it. I _will_ have stomach flu, I just don’t have it _right now.”_

Pete withdraws his hand quickly and wipes it off on the leg of his pants. “Gross,” he says. “I mean — Seriously, that’s fucking _gross_. You meant _actual_ shit? I thought we were looking for metaphorical shit. If I’d realized you meant _real_ shit, I wouldn’t have shoved my hand in there.”

“Metaphorical shit?” Patrick asks vaguely, heading through into the downstairs bathroom and shoving something Pete no longer wants to think about into the trash. “Oh no, we do the real deal in this house or nothing at all. I’ve changed _nine_ diapers since she woke up this morning. _Nine._ If she wore Huggies, we would be single-handedly responsible for our own diaper island in the center of Lake Michigan by now. They’d write scientific papers about us and blame us for global warming.”

Pete gags quietly: he hasn’t changed a diaper since 2011.

“Daddy,” Noah wails from somewhere in the house. “It happened again!”

“Oh God,” Patrick groans, leaning his head against the wall. “I think he barfed on his bed again. I _gave_ him a bowl. We talked about the bowl. We discussed that the puke was supposed to go _in_ the bowl. We practiced _technique...”_

“Oh,” Pete says. He feels… yes, he feels disappointed. Today is something he’s worked really hard on, by the metrics with which his effort can generally be measured. He made everything in the picnic basket himself. He picked out _games_. This was supposed to be _fun._ “Do you think they might feel better once we get them outside?”

Patrick laughs. It’s not an amused sound. “This family is not fit for public appearances. We’re the Greta Garbo of family units - we want to be alone. Look, I’m really sorry, but I think we’re going to have to raincheck.”

“I don’t think she _actually_ said ‘I want to be alone,’” Pete says thoughtfully. “Like, i think that was a myth and—”

“Daaad!” Noah yells once more. There’s a suspiciously _retchy_ edge to it.

“Yes,” Patrick says, nodding. “This is a definite raincheck.”

“But…” Pete begins. Should he offer to find a babysitter? He has momentum now, and he’s terrified that if he stops, if they take a break from this once-a-week carousel of one another’s company, then everything will fall apart. “I could call my mom? She could watch them for a couple hours.”

“That’s sweet, but grossly unfair to your mom,” He pauses and then moves to the kitchen, grabbing cleaning supplies and a water bottle from the fridge. “I’m coming, buddy,” he calls to Noah, and then Avery starts to cry from the opposite direction. “You too, Avery just — just give daddy half a minute.” He turns to Pete. “Honestly, I’m sorry, but there’s no way we’re going _anywhere_ today. You can go and find something much more fun to do.”

There comes a moment in every marriage where a man can back away slowly or he can stand and face whatever shit married life has to throw at him. In this case, it seems as though that shit might be _actual_ human feces. This does not sound like a fun or interesting afternoon and it looks as though Patrick might be offering a genuine, no-hard-feelings out. He could leave, be at the gym with Gabe in thirty minutes, in the bar within the hour.

“Daddy,” Harper cries, from her room.

In the living room, Avery’s sobbing intensifies. Noah is making _hideous_ noises from the upstairs bath. The only child he is currently unafraid of is Caitlyn He hopes her silence is a sign that she’s dealing with her illness with Patrickesque stoicism and not that she’s choked to death on her own vomit. Patrick scrubs the back of his wrist over his brow and looks as though he might pass out or break down. Pete, an idiot, reaches gently for the bucket of cleaning supplies.

Being a parent is so unbelievably _hard_ but the time to back out was roughly twelve years ago when he was masturbating into a cup in a fertility clinic in the North Side.

“Hey,” he says carefully, as Patrick tightens his grip instinctively. “Come on, let me. I’ll deal with… whatever the hell Noah is doing. You figure out the babies. We reconvene in the kitchen for post-battle Valium when this is all over.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Patrick says warily. A truly horrific noise emanates from Noah and Pete can _see_ the moment Patrick changes his mind, shoving the bucket into his hands with undisguised glee and/or relief. “But like, I am _not_ going to argue. Have at it, champ.”

With that, he bolts for the living room.

Pete mounts the stairs with all of the enthusiasm of a member of French aristocracy circa 1792. The stench in the upstairs hallway is _ungodly_ , emanating from Noah’s room and the bathroom in equal measure. There is not enough bleach, air freshener and Lysol in the Chicagoland area to deal with this nuclear waste eruption of bodily grossness. God, what the hell is Patrick _feeding_ them?

He pinches his nose and calls out cautiously, “Noah? Little dude? Are you in the bathroom right now? Fart once for yes, twice for no.”

There is a low, burbling moan from the master suite in response. Carefully, Pete pushes open the door.

“My dude?” he says. Noah is bent double over the toilet bowl, retching unattractively.

“Dad?” he says weakly, and then he turns around.

The idea of parenting has been a foreign one for the past five years or so. Pete has, by his absence, denied himself the tight, bladed feeling of facing a scraped knee or a sick child. It hits with the force of a sucker punch directly to the stomach. It’s _visceral_ , tearing through him and knocking the breath from him as Noah’s pinched, miserable face relaxes into a smile. _He thinks_ I _can fix it,_ Pete thinks and feels sticky with the responsibility of it, with the aching realization that he would give _anything_ to possess that ability. Then Noah’s face twists and he turns a little grey and Pete thinks _Oh shit, I’m really_ not _in a position to fix this._

“No,” Pete barks. “No, no, no, no, no!”

He can see the next thirty seconds of his life playing out in his head, in the queasy way Noah’s mouth twitches at the corners, how he lunges forward across the bathroom and towards Pete, instead of turning back to the toilet bowl like a rational human being. Because he’s _eight_ and eight-year-olds are not, by their very nature, rational, he doesn’t even bring a hand up to his mouth. Instead, he opens wide and lets rip and paints the front of Pete’s shirt and his pants with vomit.

Is it better or worse that it’s body temperature? It cools quickly, either way.

“Noah,” Pete says weakly. “Why didn’t you puke into the toilet?”

“I’m sorry, dad,” Noah says, although he looks pretty self-satisfied. “I think I feel a little—”

The second bout hits Pete’s shoes. This isn’t what fashion magazines mean when they talk about coordination. He gags a little and concentrates on not throwing up himself.

“Okay,” Pete says, very bravely, for the record. The mirror shows him a man biting his lip, a man with wild eyes, a man covered from nipples to toes in someone else’s partially digested breakfast. He thinks he can make out the cheerios, if he looks closely enough. There is, remarkably, no puke _at all_ on Noah. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. _You_ are going to fetch your bowl and you are going to sit on the toilet and you are _not going to move_ until horrible things have stopped coming out of you.”

“Fine,” says Noah. “What about you?”

“I’m going to cut myself out of this shirt. I’m going to shower. I’m going to clean the bathroom and your bedroom. And _then_ I’m going to google adoption agencies or find out if there are any local wolf packs who might take you in and raise you.”

Noah thinks about this for a moment and then says, “If I get a choice, I want the wolf pack.”

Pete smiles, in spite of the barf dripping from the hem of his shirt and onto the tiles. “Duly noted.”

***

The human body can only contain so much puke or shit at any one time. The amount is finite, based on parameters of the amount of food consumed divided by the number of hours since consumption and most recent evacuation. A couple of rounds from either end – _at most –_ should drain the average child of all they have to offer.

Pete has discovered that this scientific theory is in no way true. Children — _his_ children — are bottomless pits of disgusting goop that can emerge from either end, without warning, no matter how many times he reminds them that all they’ve consumed in the past nine hours is water. He has showered three times. All he can smell is lemon Lysol. He thinks he’s inhaled enough to induce actual medical hallucinations. He would like to crawl into a hole and die as clearly death is the only possible end to his suffering.

Patrick is slumped into the corner of the couch with his eyes closed and his glasses askew. It’s been at least twenty minutes since a child made a noise from upstairs, which is eighteen minutes longer than they’ve managed at any point so far today. Shell-shocked, Pete nudges his toe against Patrick’s calf.

“Hmph?” Patrick jolts, eyes springing open. “’m coming, sweetie, give me a second.” He blinks at Pete, unhurried. “Oh. It’s you. Did you shit or puke? Because if you did, you’re on your own.”

“You should shower,” Pete says. “Mostly because you’ll feel better but, like, also because you smell of baby puke and I love you, but you’re making me feel nauseous.”

“Can’t shower,” Patrick shakes his head, “if I shower, I’m saying this is all over. Like in a zombie movie, when they say ‘I think we got ‘em all,’ right before one of those undead bastards jumps out from the bushes and bites the grizzled ex-cop? I’m not willing to tempt fate like that.”

“There’s no way there’s anything left in them, I swear to God. It’s like – I felt like Father Karras for a hot minute, only instead of holy water, I had baby shampoo and antibacterial wipes. The power of Clorox compels you.”

Patrick laughs, sudden and bright. “Oh God, I can’t believe you actually stuck around after the projectile puking. If someone told me _I_ could leave, there’d be a Patrick-shaped hole in the door.”

There are quite a lot of things Pete could say in response but all of them sound trite or self-aggrandizing or insincere. What he’d _really_ like to say is ‘last time we were both on this couch I had your tongue in my mouth and your dick against mine and I’d really like to do that again.’ However, that’s the kind of sentence that comes with consequences and being kicked out isn’t something he wants to think about when Patrick is looking ruffled and dad-ish and delicious in an old Northwestern shirt and ripped up jeans. God, he has to say _something_ before the staring becomes obvious and creepy.

“Shower,” he says firmly. “Go ahead, I’ll fix something for dinner.”

Patrick grumbles, hauling himself to his feet. “You mean you’ll order in.”

 _“Shower,_ Stump-Wentz, before I take you out back and turn the hose on you.”

Patrick goes.

This gives Pete approximately fifteen minutes to execute his Brilliant Plan. The capitalization is intended and necessary because this is the sort of off the cuff greatness that the dude who wrote The Game can only dream of. Pete is hurricane of movement as he blasts through the garage, the den, the basement, a boy scout of romantic brilliance with the merit badge to match.

Back in the living room, he stacks couch cushions, inflates camping mattresses, he makes a roof from the throw slung over the couch and, with well-placed duct tape, he strings fairy lights like stars. He unpacks the picnic he shoved hurriedly into the fridge between washing down children and mopping up puke. Penny cocks her head and curls up on a throw pillow, a picture of domestic contentment.

“What do you think, Pen?” he asks her. She blinks at him from her bright little eyes and licks her front paw delicately. “Yeah, I thought so, too.”

He looks at the pillow fort, at the dowdy gray mattress and the lights he liberated from a box marked ‘old xmas junk – toss out.’ This is either the most incredibly romantic thing that anyone has ever done in the history of struggling marriages, or it’s nothing more than a shitty collection of all their junk hauled into the living room to leave behind dust on the hardwood. He wants this to work. He wants Patrick to want this to work. He just… wants, with the ferocity of an REM song.

Whilst Pete exhausts himself into an emotional crisis, he is not listening for any noises on the stairs or in the hallway. He can’t hear much at all beyond his own elevated pulse, his breathing short and staticky in his chest.

So, he jumps when Patrick clears his throat from the doorway, when he spins and finds him flushed and damp from the shower. He’s dressed in a Cubs shirt that pulls a little too tight across his stomach and chest, damp between his pectorals where he pulled it on without toweling off properly and a pair of loose basketball shorts that have most definitely never seen a basketball court. There is an half an inch of soft, fuzzy belly visible between both items of clothing. His hair is feathered around his face, sticking to his temples wetly and curling against the nape of his neck. The lenses of his glasses catch the glow of the fairy lights. His mouth is a soft, pink miracle, caught in the center of several days of untamed beard growth.

Pete makes a sound that he hopes is not a groan.

“Oh,” says Patrick quietly. “I – Oh, _Pete.”_

***

There is a pile of camping equipment and Christmas decorations in the center of the living room. Patrick has questions. Questions like _What the fuck?_ and _Why are you building a shanty town?_ and _Are those the Christmas lights that have a dangerous fray in the electrical cable?_

In literally any other circumstances, Patrick would be deeply, irrevocably pissed. The person who hauls crap out of the garage is _never_ the one who has to put it back, this is a truth held to be self-evident. But Pete is standing by this pile of dust bunnies and dubious stains smiling a cautious smile and looking as though he doesn’t know if he should stay or bolt across the suburb and not stop until he hits the lake. Pete is smiling and he’s tugging self-consciously at the hem of his shirt and he looks so deeply vulnerable that Patrick’s gut twists with affection.

“I made us a pillow fort,” Pete says, like it isn’t entirely obvious.

Patrick blinks. It’s still there when he opens his eyes. “I can see that.”

“There are fairy lights.” Pete points to them, as though Patrick might mistake them for fireflies, their little bioluminescent butts strapped to the two-hundred dollar mohair throw with electrical tape.

He nods, though. “Yep, a ton of fairy lights.”

“Do you like it?” Pete asks nervously. “You’re not really giving much away. And like, you don’t have to say yes, but I want you to know that if you say _no_ , I’m emigrating to Canada and becoming a logger, so, no pressure or anything.”

“You’d look good in flannel,” Patrick says, grinning like an insane person. “You’ve got the beard _and_ you could totally deal with not seeing a woman for months at a time. Maybe you made a mistake with the journalism thing. _Maybe_ being a logger is your calling and this is your chance to really carpe your diem.”

“Says the man with the sexy, don’t give a fuck scruff.”

“I can’t assemble flat-pack furniture without supervision. This beard in no way qualifies me to operate the kind of heavy mechanical equipment necessary to fell _actual_ trees.”

He is no longer consciously forming words. He is simply allowing sounds to collect at the back of his throat and spill out from his mouth. Each iota of his concentration is focused on Pete’s mouth, on the pillow fort behind him, built up between the couch and the wall where the kids won’t see them immediately if they burst in through the door. A utopia of adult space constructed with such childish joy and enthusiasm. This is the Pete of fifteen years ago, the man who snuck Patrick into municipal pools after closing, who built a slip and slide in front of the faculty building and drank iced tea with too much sugar and kissed Patrick tasting of strawberry ice cream and dubious decisions.

“I didn’t order in,” Pete says, shuffling his sock-clad feet against the hardwood. His sweatpants are low on his hips and Patrick is staring at his bartskull with an urgent hunger deep in his chest. This is almost definitely leading to a dick joke, where Pete tells him he has something else he can eat and goddammit, Patrick has a feeling it’ll work. “But I have like, a ton of picnic food, if you’re hungry.”

“Oh,” he says, “In that case, I guess you should give me the grand tour of your tent.”

Pete rolls his eyes. “Pillow fort.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Is there a difference between my attempts at drawing and the roof of the Sistine Chapel? Of _course_ there’s a difference.”

“You believe _this_ is the Sistine Chapel of pillow forts?”

“Shut up and get inside, it’s more impressive when you’re ground level.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow. “You told me that fifteen years ago. Like, you used those _exact_ words. You were lying.”

“Ugh, you’re _impossible.”_ Pete wrestles him down into the fort and wriggles in after him. It smells of damp camping mattress and Pete’s beard oil. Pete gestures vaguely around them. “So, this is the living, dining, sleeping and entertainment space. The creator tried to go for an outdoors-indoors feel with the addition of a astrologically accurate depiction of the night sky in Chicago.”

“Astrologically?” Patrick says. “Where’s Taurus? Is the moon currently in venus? Will I meet a tall, handsome stranger at Whole Foods? Enquiring minds need to know.”

“Shut up, you know _exactly_ what I mean.”

“It’s very… compact,” Patrick says, hip to hip with Pete. If he rolls backwards, he will crash through the couch cushion wall and onto his ass. “Cozy.”

“Yeah, I mean, the guy who built it really tried to make a statement about how much space we take up in everyday life,” Pete nods sagely. “Also? He only had a camping mattress and, like, fifteen minutes to carry out the whole build. Some might say he did a lot with what was available.”

“I see,” Patrick says, nodding sagely. “So it’s _mostly_ a testament to minimalism and throwing off capitalist expectations of space and grandeur but it’s _also_ kind of rushed and half-assed.”

“Exactly.” Pete beams at him.

“Right,” Patrick says. “And you staged your protest to property size in your 3,000 square foot demonstration of how much you love John Hughes movies?”

“I mean, _baby steps,_ Patrick,” Pete says. “We can’t go from mortgages to yurts in the wilderness without an in-between stage.”

Patrick needs to treaty with this man before he does something stupid. They need ground rules. They need a chaperone, probably. Their legs are already tangled together and he’s having a difficult time convincing himself it was a series of incredibly well-placed accidents.

“Look,” he says, with grave seriousness. “I want to make it clear that like, just because I’m cuddling with you in a pillow fort, that doesn’t mean anything _risqué_ is going to happen.”

Pete nods. “Oh. Cool. Cool, cool. We’re definitely all about protecting one another’s virtue in this particular tent. No, uh, _risqué_ business going on here.”

French wordplay? Gorgeous. Doing nothing for Patrick’s resolve or his half-chub.

“Yeah.” Patrick is breathing unnaturally quickly. This is either the early stages of arousal or a really inconveniently timed asthma attack. Not staring at Pete’s mouth might help but, then again, he will no longer be staring at Pete’s mouth which is, apparently, his new favorite pastime. “We’re keeping it PG-13.”

“We get one fuck?” Pete asks innocently.

Patrick thinks about smothering him with a pillow. “Hmm.”

“I mean.” Pete raises his eyebrows. “I’m a little warm in here so is it okay if I take off my shirt? That’s not, uh, an _invitation_ or anything, it’s just dudes being bros, right?”

Patrick gives this serious thought. At least, he does an excellent impression of serious thought whilst his heart hammers wildly and his mouth dries and his dick thickens. “I – well, it would be pretty bad if you got heat stroke so, like, make yourself comfortable.”

Pete does just that and lies back against the cushions, looking lean and inked and so impossibly _good_. God, he has _abs_. This is not a man that someone like Patrick should get to touch, the truth of it sour in his stomach. Patrick runs his thumb along the delve between Pete’s pectorals and down, pausing at the waist of his sweats as Pete shivers, fevered. Patrick wants to lick his collar bone, to bite into his throat and taste the jut of his hip bones.

When he speaks, his voice is unsteady. “I have – I just want you to know, I’m completely committed to keeping any stupid hormonal urges in check, because I am thirty-five and in total control right now. I’m _resolved._ ”

It’s unclear if he’s convincing himself or Pete.

“Good to know,” Pete agrees laconically. “It would be a real shame if things got carried away.”

He rubs his thumb along Patrick’s eyebrow and his cheekbone and his jaw and down to his chin where he presses down, holding Patrick’s mouth open just a fraction. He leans in, lips very close. Patrick is no longer a corporeal being. He is nothing more than the physical manifestation of his own heartbeat, encased in a too-small Cubs shirt and the twinkling heat of this private den on their living room floor. He wants to kiss Pete more than he wants anything else right now. He wants to kiss Pete more than he wants to _live._

Patrick’s cock fills with one languid throb.

“Babe,” Pete says, his eyes very sincere. Patrick raises his eyebrows because his vocal cords have given up entirely. Pete drops his voice, impossibly sexy in Patricks ear. “Your _resolve_ is poking me in the hip.”

“I…” he tries, and licks his suddenly dry lips and does not think about how much he wants Pete to lick his mouth for him. “Well, if it’s _bothering_ you…?”

“God no. Your _resolve_ is one of my favorite things about you,” Pete murmurs, twirling the drawstring of Patrick’s shorts around his finger. Patrick’s entire being is tense, braced for the inevitable force of impact, for the tsunami rush of Pete’s mouth on his skin. God, Pete can kiss him anywhere. Pete should kiss him _everywhere_.

It’s clear that Pete will do nothing without verbal consent, without signed authorization delivered in triplicate. Patrick swallows hard and closes his eyes. He whispers, “I mean, it seems like a kiss _probably_ wouldn’t hurt.”

“Just a kiss,” Pete says, “seems legit.” And then he presses his mouth to Patrick’s.

The kiss is not gentle. It doesn’t build and spark from nothing but leaps, electric, into the grasp of Pete’s hands in his hair, the fluttering heat of his tongue licking past Patrick’s teeth. He kisses demented, biting Patrick’s lips, tugging the lower one into his mouth with his teeth, sucking and stinging and licking. Patrick is breathless, woozy, leaning in and kissing back and grinding the determined weight of his erection into Pete, rubbing over his hip and into the crease of his groin. _Yes,_ he says with his kiss, _yes to all of this and anything else and God, just don’t stop, never stop_. Patrick is certain he can’t breathe unless it’s from Pete’s lungs, his heart can’t beat if it isn’t echoed by Pete’s, he can’t _live_ without the taste of Pete’s mouth on his tongue.

It’s _that_ kind of kiss.

Pete rubs against Patrick’s crotch, a long, slow pull of his dick that makes Patrick shiver, his groin a bruised and throbbing swell. It feels so good, he might ignite. Is it possible to die from sudden-onset horniness? Can the blood trapped in his cock induce heart failure? Before Patrick can take out his phone and google it, Pete brushes his knuckles along the hum of Patrick’s pulse in his throat and licks into his mouth.

As Pete stretches out over him, strong and lean, Patrick forgets to feel self conscious. How stupid to feel inhibited when his dick is so swollen in his shorts, when Pete is grinding down into him and kissing him, kissing him, kissing him. How ridiculous to feel anything but his heartbeat in his groin, every inch drawing up, tight, hard, the rest of his body a slow puddle on the floor. Patrick throws back his head as Pete bites into his pulse, his teeth scraping over the stubble on the soft underside of his jaw. Pete digs his thumb into Patrick’s chin, holds his mouth open as he moves back and kisses him deeply. It makes it awkward to kiss back so Patrick falls back, supplicant under the judicious exploration of Pete’s wet, hungry mouth and lets it happen.

On the floor of their living room, Patrick surrenders entirely. His hands drift, his thumb hooking into Pete’s sweats so he can drag him closer, warmer, harder. The heat in Pete’s dick is pandemic, bleeding through their clothes until Patrick is burning up, an exothermic reaction, a spark hitting a thermite. Pete palms down Patrick’s chest, tweaking his nipples until they pebble under his shirt, skimming strong fingers across his stomach, pausing, cautious, at the waist of his shorts.

“I would like to suck you off,” he murmurs, pulling back from Patrick’s mouth to watch him. “I’d like it very much.”

Patrick’s whole face feels like a beard burn, hot and chafed. He rubs a hand down over his cock and feels it pulse under his palm. He blinks up at Pete like he’s high and splays his hands across the firm, smooth planes of his pecs.

“You shaved,” he murmurs, wondering, leaning in to drag his tongue over the dark brown bud of a nipple. The burst of salt on his tongue, Pete’s throaty groan, Patrick leans his head into Pete’s chest and closes his eyes.

“I did,” Pete whispers, sounding wrecked already, “I know how you like it.”

Patrick doesn’t say that he hasn’t. It’s obvious in the cheery fray of coppery hair on display beneath his ridden-up shirt, the curls that climb over the neckline. Embarrassment wars arousal wars self-flagellation as he imagines Pete tugging down his shorts, revealing his fat, pink dick in its reddish matt of pubic hair. He thinks of Pete sucking him off, his forehead grazing the bristly round of Patrick’s belly with every bob of his mouth. He thinks he might be sick. He thinks he might bolt.

“I can’t,” he says. His dick throbs angrily. “This is — Can we knock the lights off, maybe?”

“I love every inch of you,” Pete whispers, his hair falling down around his face as he leans over Patrick and kisses his mouth like he can read minds. Which Patrick hopes, fervently, he cannot. “You’re — God, you’re so fucking gorgeous, and you don’t even realize. Let me show you, babe. Let me make you feel good.”

Which is nice to hear, but...

“The thing is,” Patrick says, shifting uncomfortably. “This this _is,_ I’m feeling a tiny bit self conscious right now. I mean, you look a lot like one of those sculptures of Apollo and I sort of look like something that was sculpted, too, except the sculpture I look like is a garden gnome.”

Pete looks at him, a very loaded look, and gently traces his thumb around Patrick’s lips.

“If they made garden gnomes that looked like you,” he says, his mouth twitching like he’s trying not to smile, “I would buy a hundred. I’d fill the whole backyard with gorgeous, sexy Patrick gnomes. Everyone would be jealous. But you don’t, in fact, look like a gnome. Feel this,” he grabs Patrick’s hand, pushes it against his swollen dick, “feel what you do to me. I don’t get like that over garden gnomes. It would make trips to Walmart uncomfortable.”

Patrick shapes Pete’s cock through his sweatpants. He is _so hard_ it’s almost impossible. They’ve done this more times than he can count, the dark bob of Pete’s head between his thighs so familiar he can see it without looking. Until Pete stopped doing it and Patrick started wondering what he’d done wrong and the only logical conclusion, the only tangible thing that changed, was his waist size. It wasn’t difficult to join the dots. God, he is so tired of being embarrassed. If this soft-stomached, thinning-haired, fuzzy-thighed dad can inspire an erection that hard, then maybe he should just… relax. Enjoy it. Let Pete suck his dick like he used to.

Patrick nods, his eyes closed, and leans back into the pillows. Pete kisses him hungrily, his throat, his collar bones, his nipples through the cotton of his shirt. Pete does not attempt to remove his shirt, like he knows it’s too much, his mouth lingering against the side of Patrick’s belly, his nose sliding through the coarse curl of his happy trail as he mouths along the band of his shorts.

“May I?” he asks. Patrick nods and raises his hips.

The air of the living room is cold against the quivering red heat of Patrick’s swollen erection as Pete eases down his shorts. Patrick groans and keep his eyes closed. It’s surreal to be so bare in front of Pete. Weird to be undressed in front of anything that isn’t his foggy reflection in the bathroom mirror, really. When was the last time the lights weren’t out, when the covers weren’t pulled up to his chin? When did Pete last suck his dick like he wanted to, instead of jerking him off as an afterthought? He won’t watch this — can’t watch this — just fits his fist into the place where Pete’s undercut gives way to the full length of his hair and cants his hips and waits.

“You are so beautiful,” Pete assures him and Patrick jumps as Pete licks over his hip bone. Or what would be his hip bone if it wasn’t lost under a layer of takeouts.

If there’s one thing Patrick doesn’t need right now, it’s empty compliments. He tights his fingers in Pete’s hair and mutters, “Shut up,” and keeps his eyes closed.

Pete’s hand smooths over his stomach, he says, “I love the way you look, you’re so pale and soft and gorgeous,” his breath finds the ticklish land mass between Patrick’s belly button and his pubic bone; Patrick squeaks indignantly because _soft_ is not a good thing, “and I love how you look when I kiss you here,” Pete’s mouth is wet and open, sloppy at the crease of Patrick’s groin, “I can smell how turned on you are,” he buries his nose in Patrick’s pubic hair, breathes deeply, fills his lungs with the scent, “God, Patrick, you’ve got a dick to die for, love the way you leak for me,” and his tongue swipes against the ridged crown of Patrick’s cock; Patrick levitates or chokes or _dies_ , a biting groan thick in his throat, “I’m going to…”

Pete stops. His mouth is close enough to burn, the jump of electricity from mass to mass as he braces over Patrick’s reckless swell. The room is very still. Patrick could back out right now. He could push Pete away and pull up his shorts. But Pete slides a hand around him, Patrick collapses in on himself, folding down as Pete thumbs tenderly at the fat vein, plump with blood, at the base of his cock. This? This surmounts self-image. This is absolution.

“Pete,” he gasps brokenly. _“Pete.”_

Pete slides his mouth over the aching head of Patrick’s dick, his tongue curling, his thumbs digging tender bruises into Patrick’s hips. His hand is a knot in Pete’s hair, pulling harder than he means to but not as hard as Pete likes. Pete moans in approval, the vibration of his voice humming through Patrick like periodic motion, unsettling the balance of molecules and atoms and the very foundation of the fucking universe. His mouth is slick and hot, wet pressure and deep suction as he licks, swallows, sucks. His tongue swipes up the underside of Patrick’s dick on every greedy bob of his head. He groans around Patrick like the taste of him is exquisite.

There has never been a blowjob like this in the recorded history of oral sex. It’s epic, groundbreaking, a religious experience. Patrick rocks his hips and bites his lip and reminds himself that it’s _probably_ not possible to pass out from the deep-root sensation of Pete sucking his cock.

Pete pulls off long enough to murmur, “Look at me, babe,” his fingers digging greedily into Patrick’s mouth. Patrick sucks, surprised, his eyes fluttering down in time to watch Pete’s lips sink over the wide, wet length of him once more. This is the moment, Pete’s eyes on him, his mouth stretched white at the corners, his fingers on Patrick’s tongue, that Patrick gives up on independent thought. The fact he is even able to _breathe_ right now is miraculous.

He sucks Pete’s fingers unthinkingly, sucks because it’s instinct, his mouth moving in time with Pete’s, his tongue curling under the tips. It’s like sucking his own dick as Pete mirrors depth, suction, speed. Patrick is a collapsing vein of grateful desire, his thighs spasming, his lungs stuttering, his whole body beginning to shake as Pete looks up at him with the heated violation of Patrick’s dick between his lips.

He says, quickly, “Pete. Pete, I think I’m gonna…”

“’That’s the point, baby,” Pete slurs, pulling off to lick at Patrick’s dick, “let go.”

Pete swallows him down once more and Patrick makes a frankly _ridiculous_ sound. This is embarrassing. He’s too old to get off this quickly. He rocks his hips as Pete bobs his head and cradles the back of Pete’s skull in his hands. Pete snuffles, a greedy little sound, and rubs his tongue under the swollen, nervy head of Patrick’s dick, touching every neglected nerve with his ravening mouth. Pete looks up, and Patrick thumbs over his cheekbone, touches his flushed lip where it’s pushed to his flushed cock and thinks _God, I love you,_ and _I can’t, I can’t, I can’t._

“Oh!” Patrick gasps, surprised, and comes.

He comes with inevitable heat, his dick twitching, spilling thick, white globs in Pete’s mouth, _on_ Pete’s mouth, which makes him come harder, makes his stomach cramp and the greedy shiver of his hole flutter like it wants to be filled. It feels like the world ending and all he can do is lie on his back and gape at the roof of the fort and wait to fall back into his own skin.

(He wishes Pete fucked him instead. He is terrified by the idea of Pete fucking him. He wants, but he doesn’t really know what. It’s so confusing, clouded by his orgasm and floating on the edges of rational sensibility.)

“Missed that,” Pete laughs as he crawls up over Patrick and spits the sloppy mess of his orgasm into his hand. “Missed how you sound when we do that.”

Before Patrick can lament the fact that Pete finds the taste of him unpalatable, Pete takes his own unyielding dick into his hand, rubs it wet and shiny with his spit and Patrick’s come. It’s the hottest thing Patrick’s ever seen, his stomach cramping and his dick twitching. Then Pete kisses him, his wet, red mouth salty-bitter with Patrick’s taste. The kiss is deep and hard as Patrick lies there, half-naked and trembling, his dick twinging with aftershocks and trapped between their bellies.

Patrick doesn’t have time to object as Pete shoves his shirt up and exposes the soft, fuzzy roundness of his stomach and chest. He’s still gasping, still spasming, as Pete gets his wet hand around his own cock once more and mumbles into Patrick’s throat, “Fuck, babe, I’m _so_ fucking close, get me so worked up, gonna come on you, that alright?” and comes, gasping, in three hard strokes, all across Patrick’s stomach. Pete collapses to him, breathing into his ear, stroking at his cock so his knuckles brush up and over Patrick’s gut again and again.

Exposed from chest to toes, his Cubs shirt rucked up in his armpits and his wet, fuzzy belly splattered with come, Patrick feels that familiar crawling heat in his chest. Pete splays a hand across Patrick’s stomach and covers so little of him that Patrick wants to die. He no longer feels uninhibited, that fleeting loss of self-control deserts him. This is awful, the most awful thing he can imagine.

It’s not just the physical exposure but the condoms in Pete’s bag. The idea of him thinking of them, buying them, _using_ them. Was the guy he bought them for thin? Pretty how Patrick used to be pretty? He stops feeling attractive and he starts feeling… disgusting. He feels used. He is completely _humiliated._

“Get off me,” he grunts, shoving Pete to one side and yanking up his shorts. There is nothing to wipe himself off with but Pete’s t-shirt. He stains it with grim relish and yanks down his own shirt defensively. He hopes it was expensive. “God, what the _fuck_ , Pete?”

“I…” Pete starts, on his back with his dick still in his hand, dark and hard and messy. He looks bewildered. “I don’t — What’s wrong?”

It turns out that orgasm is perilously close to breakdown. Patrick’s face is wet though he doesn’t remember beginning to cry. He hauls the hem of his shirt up and scrapes his face dry but it’s impossible, there’s more wet, more salt and heat. He opens his mouth to tell Pete to back off but all that comes out is a hard, wet sob.

“You cheated on me,” he rasps eventually, because he wants to be resolved and factual but his chest feels like it’s splintering. It feels worse when he says it loud, when he imagines Pete doing what they’ve just done with someone else. “You fucking cheated on me and I thought I could deal with it but I can’t. Or you thought about it, but that doesn’t seem any better.”

He can’t articulate why it’s just as bad, he just knows that it _is_ , the knowledge fatalistic: He doesn’t need to scrape his knuckles along the cheesegrater to know that it will hurt.

“What?” Pete asks stupidly, still slippery and far away from his orgasm. “I don’t…”

“Shut the fuck up,” Patrick hisses. “For once in your goddamn life, just shut up. You’re still breaking me, I can’t — I don’t know how to put myself back together because every time I try, you’re slamming me down again and again.”

Pete watches him with the wary intent of a prey animal, reaching out a hand to stroke down his bicep but jolting away before he makes contact. Patrick cries into his knees and wonders how to stop his heart from hurting.

Maybe when he told himself Pete was going to fail, none of it mattered. Maybe now it seems like Pete has a chance, his heart can’t take it.

Finally, Pete brushes his thumb gently over Patrick’s toes. “Do you — Can we talk?”

They sit together in front of the pillow fort like they’re sitting amongst ruins. It feels like the aftermath of a nuclear detonation and Patrick’s ears are still ringing and all he can see is endless, brilliant nothingness. Pete slides closer and, cautiously, places an arm around his shoulders. Patrick is cracked, torn between leaning into him and shoving him away. He doesn’t move.

Nothing can hurt as much as not knowing, he reasons, nothing can sting like imagining a thousand different situations in which Pete fucks other men who aren’t Patrick. He tells himself he’s strong enough to withstand whatever Pete might say next. He thinks this is probably not true.

“Talk, then,” he says. “Talk and tell me why you’ve had a pack of condoms in your overnight bag for the past six months.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

Pete goes from post-orgasm glow to the fiery depths of emotional instability with the speed and ferocity of one of the larger, meaner rides at Six Flags. There is no need to attempt to trigger the release of adrenaline with thrill rides. If anyone would like to experience heart attack levels of panic, they just need their spouse to start crying about condoms and cheating in the confusing few seconds right after they come.

He tries to move away from Patrick and then tries to move closer but both movements are inhibited by his sweatpants snagged around his thighs so instead he flops across the rug with his soft, jizz-streaked penis lolloping around like a circus attraction. The pillow fort looks far less charming when Patrick is sobbing in front of it. The whole concept of his plan of distraction starts to seem… ridiculous. Pete hauls his pants up over his ass, snagging the waist agonizingly on his testicles and pinging everything back into place with far more force than necessary.

He doesn’t speak; not because he doesn’t want to, but because he doesn’t know what to say. For the longest collection of heartbeats, he has literally _no idea_ what Patrick is talking about.

“Uh,” he says, because Patrick is looking at him, _waiting_ for an answer. “Well…”

Then, it slips back. The repressed memory of standing in the birth control section of CVS, furtively stuffing a three pack of Trojans into his basket with mouthwash and deodorant and vanilla sugar body wash and tampons. The tampons were a ruse, _obviously,_ he’s not a deviant _._ But there’s this irrational part of his fragile masculinity that wants the outside world to believe he could be boning his unbelievably hot wife. It seems pretty tragic, now he’s thinking about it.

The important thing is, Pete can remember _exactly_ why he bought the condoms. And he really, _really_ doesn’t want to discuss it with his husband.

“It’s a simple question,” Patrick points out tersely. “You don’t need to give the answer a lot of thought. Why’d you buy them? Why’d you shove them in the bag and leave them there?”

Pete scrapes his fingers through his hair, he nudges Penny away with his toes, he clears his throat and sniffs and wipes the drool, sweat and come from his face and off onto his sweats. He does everything he can think of to delay stammering out an answer. The problem with being with someone for fifteen years, though, is that their tolerance for bullshit is remarkably low. Patrick barks out a short laugh and says, “God, you’re the fucking worst, you know? You can’t even look me in the eye and answer me.”

“Um…” Pete says. “The thing is…” And then, he stops talking again.

“Fuck you,” Patrick sighs. He doesn’t even sound _angry_ , which should be reassuring but isn’t. Instead, he sounds bone weary, like he’s _tired_ of Pete, or didn’t expect any better in the first place. “I’m going to bed. Let yourself out and, like, don’t bother me again unless it’s something to do with the kids.”

“They’re absolutely not for what you’re thinking they’re for,” Pete says quickly.

Patrick pauses, halfway to his knees. Pete hopes Patrick will accept this as full and frank disclosure and ask for no further evidence to be presented in his defense.

Of course, Patrick does no such thing. “So, what _are_ they for?” he asks sarcastically. “Balloon animals?”

“I don’t think you could make a balloon animal from a condom,” Pete says seriously. “I think it would be a terrible media for a balloon animal. Although, thinking about it, the little jizz pouch at the end would make a really great nose for balloon dogs. Should we try it?”

The glare Patrick gives him is vicious. “You are not helping yourself to _not_ get divorced right now,” he assures him. “You are not helping yourself _at all.”_

Two minutes ago, Pete was enjoying the best sexual experience of the past year of his life. Now, a pack of condoms tucked into his bag and forgotten about has tipped his whole marriage like a Magic 8 ball. He wants a do-over. Failing that, he’ll accept a coronary arrest or a well-timed asteroid that takes out the small patch of living room floor he is currently inhabiting. Death is preferable to saying out loud, why he – a married man for twelve years and with a partner physiologically incapable of bearing children – has condoms in his Samsonite.

“Okay,” he says, and keeps his tone neutral. “I’m going to tell you something and you’re going to promise me that we never have to speak of it ever again.”

Patrick scowls at him. “I can’t make that promise.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You have _condoms_ , in your _overnight bag._ Do you want to start debating _fair_ right now? _Do_ you, Peter?”

Patrick needs to stop making completely reasonable points, it’s making Pete look bad. _Worse_. It’s making him look worse.

“Right,” Pete nods, because if he doesn’t nod, Patrick looks like he might instruct the family law attorney immediately. “Cool. Okay. So, remember when we flew out to visit your dad before Christmas?”

Patrick has stopped crying, which is good. Patrick is not crying because he looks completely furious, which is less good.

He says, “This does not, in fact, sound like an explanation for the condoms. We haven’t used condoms since _2005._ You have, like, _ten seconds_ to get to that part of the story,” and Pete suspects he ought to start availing himself of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, no matter how embarrassing that might be.

Pete takes a deep breath, and then he says, “Sometimes, normal couples have sex while they’re on vacation.”

In a list of Wrong Things to Say, that must be the Most Wrong. Patrick stiffens against the couch, his knuckles flexing like he might punch Pete in the face which, honestly, he would totally deserve. But that’s spousal abuse. That’s bad. That probably won’t help to fix their marriage.

“Please don’t punch me in the face,” Pete says. “It might seem tempting, but I think you’d regret it in the aftermath.”

 _“Normal husbands_ don’t pretend they can’t hear their _newborn infant_ crying in the travel crib,” Patrick hisses. “ _Normal husbands_ don’t refuse to get out of bed until eleven every morning, they don’t fake that they have to work to avoid sightseeing and they don’t make their seven-year-old son _cry_ because he wants to go watch football and his _dad_ won’t take him.” He sounds incandescent. Once again, Pete is reminded that there is no end to the making up he has to do. They can never – will never – be even. He holds his hands up in surrender. “But _please_ , go on. I am _fascinated_ to hear the end of this story.”

Pete hasn’t seen him look quite this angry since the night he asked him to leave.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I should’ve helped,” he says. Patrick doesn’t stop looking like he wants to hit him, but he does incline his head slightly to the left and waves his hand in a slow, deliberate _go on_ way. “So, I – God, this is so fucking embarrassing – I kind of wound up with a yeast infection the day before we flew out.”

“You had… a yeast infection?” Patrick says slowly. He shuffles a couple of inches away from Pete like he thinks it might still be hanging around. “Of the penis? Penile thrush?”

God, Pete is going to combust. He nods. “Jesus, I will pay you actual money to never say that again. Yes, I had thrush. So, that’s that.”

The way Patrick scowls at him suggests that that is definitely _not_ that. “Where, pray tell, did you get a yeast infection?” he asks. There’s a lot riding on Pete’s answer. Not just their marriage but, judging by the way Patrick is eyeing the vase on the coffee table, Pete’s own personal wellbeing is also at stake. “Because that’s the kind of thing you get from fuck—”

“I didn’t wash my gym kit!” Pete interjects, before Patrick’s fantasies of home vasectomies can be realized. “I left my gym kit in the bag for like, six months, and I wound up with jock rot. I am _disgusting_ and _feral_ and all the other things you think about me and it bit me on the ass because I wound up with a crusty dick. Are you happy now?”

Pete’s heart is beating so loudly that it drowns out all other sound in the room, his chest tight and his stomach lurching like he might throw up. He has no idea if he’s mortified because he just had to admit he gave himself jock rot from his fusty gym kit, or because Patrick appears to accept this explanation entirely. He is the kind of gross that makes this completely believable. This is why his husband threatened to divorce him.

When Patrick speaks, his voice is very quiet and he is very still. “Dude,” he says softly. “Gross.”

“It was,” Pete agrees. “It was _so_ gross and I bought the condoms so you wouldn’t wind up with it, too. But then I was, you know, a total jerk who left you to deal with the kids while I fucked around on Instagram and I didn’t get laid and I used the cream like the doctor said and I forgot all about the rubbers and that, _truly_ , is that.”

“Wow,” says Patrick. “That’s… wow.”

Pete’s gone from horny, to bewildered, to terrified, to mortified in under five minutes. His moods are swinging so violently he begins to experience whiplash of the limbic system. He wonders when Patrick found the condoms. Is it better if he unearthed them as he packed Pete’s bag? If it was just a final nail in the coffin of their lacklustre relationship and he faced it with a grim sense of inevitability that _of course_ Pete was cheating on him on top of everything else? The alternative, the idea that he found them months before and has spent who knows how long torturing himself, is almost too much for Pete to bear.

“Babe,” he says quietly. “How long have you been tying yourself in knots over this?”

Patrick smiles a wobbly smile and says, “I found them maybe two weeks after we got back? I wasn’t snooping! I was looking for your drivers licence and… Yeah.”

Pete bites his lip and lowers his face into his hands and reminds himself that he didn’t actually _do_ anything wrong. Well, aside from…

“I thought about cheating on you,” he mumbles, between his fingers. He doesn’t need to see Patrick to know his reaction. It’s there in the tiny hitch to his breathing, the way he stiffens and prickles the air between them like static. It makes Pete’s heart ache and his guts knot and he drops his hands, fumbling to take Patrick’s before he can pull away. “We were so out of sync that finding someone else seemed kind of inevitable. I mean, I’ve wondered, you know?”

Patrick speaks before Pete can. “I know you did. Look at me. Why wouldn’t you?”

So, Pete does. He looks at Patrick with his sweaty blond hair that’s grown a couple of shades darker over the years, a little thinner on top like all well-loved bears. He’s thicker and softer with lines around his eyes where he’s laughed and cried and watched their children grow. There is no better option.

“I love you,” Pete says with sincerity. “You deserve so much better than me, but I need you to know that I never acted on any of the stupid thoughts I might’ve had over the years. It was just fantasy.”

He wants to bite his tongue off. Patrick shuffles back towards him warily, tense, like he’s waiting for the body blow. Slowly, he lowers his head to Pete’s shoulder. He smells of sex and shower gel, that faint hint of Patrickiness bleeding through it all as Pete noses gently through his hair.

“I have a confession to make, too,” he whispers. Pete hums gently and slides an arm around him. “I – So, I sort of kissed Joe a couple of weeks back.”

That is definitely not a sentence Pete is prepared for. His heart shatters like glass in his chest. He tries very hard to keep his breathing, his _voice_ , steady as he replies. “Oh,” he says, his voice thin. “You kissed Joe.”

“Hey, _you_ thought about fucking other people.”

This is _so_ not about what Pete _thought._ “This is _so_ not about what I thought,” he snaps. “This is about you sucking face with your handsome, Father of the Year, _taller_ best friend.”

“Taller?” Patrick’s eyebrows rise. “That’s the thing about Joe that makes you the most jealous?”

“That’s not comforting,” Pete points out. “Your comforting skills could use a little work. A _lot_ of work, actually. Taller is _important._ Everyone knows that.”

“Did you think about fucking someone taller than me?” Patrick asks lightly.

Pete thinks guiltily of Mikey. “That’s not the point. I only _thought_ about it. You sucked Joe’s face. In the spirit of one upmanship, I — Yeah, you win.”

There is no measurable scale for how not okay with this Pete is.

“You can put your hackles down, big guy,” Patrick laughs drily. “This isn’t Closer and I’m not Julia Roberts, which is to say, Joe was _not_ interested. Didn’t kiss back for like, a second. Apparently, happily married heterosexual men aren’t hugely into their fat best friend attempting to lick their tonsils.”

“I’m pretty sure this had less to do with your waist size and far more to do with your _penis,”_ Pete says sulkily. “Like, if you had tits, you’d be shacked up with Joe _right now.”_

“I mean, if I was a woman, you probably wouldn’t have been interested in me in the first place so that’s kind of a moot point. And, actually, I _do_ sort of have tits.”

“Hey,” Pete grabs Patrick by the chin, tilts him up with gentle hands and kisses him, soundly and possessively. When they pull apart, Patrick is breathing unsteadily. “I am _so lucky_ you don’t have any gorgeous _gay_ friends; they’d steal you in a heartbeat. Heteronormativity is really working in my favour right now.”

“I have Will,” Patrick points out. “He’s hot. And gay.”

Pete flexes, just a little. “Why order noodles when you’ve got beefcake at home?”

“Oh God,” Patrick snorts. “You’re unbelievable.”

They fall silent. There’s a lot to say, but Pete doesn’t feel much like saying it.

Finally, Patrick speaks. “I feel like that was a lot. Too much, probably.”

“The blowjob or the beefcake joke?”

“God, both. Just — Can we take things slowly? For now?”

“As slow as you need to,” Pete says.

Then, Patrick is leaning into him and nudging his nose under Pete’s ear and, oh, reaching carefully for Pete’s crotch. This is an unexpected plot twist but Pete ships it.

“This is significantly faster than I thought you meant,” Pete says, with a raised brow. “My refractory period is so very not what it once was. Give a guy a chance to recover a little, would you?”

“I am _not_ attempting to touch your dick,” Patrick rolls his eyes theatrically, “I was reaching for the Tupperware – I’m _starving.”_

“Oh!” Pete scrambles to grab the nearest one, shoving it into Patrick’s hands with enthusiasm. “You should try these – I made macarons! And like, I know they don’t really _look_ perfect but I bet they taste great. I didn’t try, I wanted you to have the first taste.”

Carefully, Patrick peels a sad, flat macaron from the tub. He eyes it suspiciously, twisting it this way and that. He sniffs it inquisitively. He _licks_ it, with the pink tip of his pink tongue and Pete’s dick twinges heroically in his sweats. “Are you eating that, or thinking about giving it head?”

“This is so _not_ how I preempt giving you head,” Patrick points out.

“I don’t know, I’ve sort of forgotten, you should remind me,” Pete says hopefully.

“Hmm,” says Patrick, and then he takes a bite.

Pete waits for the verdict like it’s the OJ Simpson trial. He leans forward, watching as Patrick chews, chews, swallows, licking carefully at his lips as he raises the macaron and considers it from a couple of different angles.

“Hmm,” he says.

“Well?” Pete prompts.

“It’s…” Patrick pauses, thinks. “Interesting.”

Pete reaches for the remainder. “Can I try?”

“No!” Patrick crams it into his mouth, chewing aggressively. “No, you don’t need to try! It’s delicious! Mmmm, so tasty.”

Pete begins to feel suspicious. “Okay, fine, I’ll take one of these—”

“No!” Patrick hurls himself onto the tupperware like it’s a live grenade and he’s Woody Harrelson in The Thin Red Line. “They’re not yours!”

Because he’s a very juvenile almost-forty-year-old, Pete throws himself after Patrick, snatching at the macarons. Patrick executes a startlingly swift commando crawl across the living room floor, positioned over the tub. “Give me a fucking cookie, Patrick!”

“Nuh-uh!” He begins cramming them into his mouth with fevered urgency. He sprays crumbs when he speaks. “You don’t get any! You don’t get them because you made them for _me_ and they’re _mine_ and I’m not sharing! No delicious macarons for _you.”_

By the time Pete wrestles him onto his back and yanks the tub free, it’s completely empty. Patrick is wild-eyed and panting, his mouth sticky with frosting. Penny is in a state of near-collapse and they’re making enough noise to either wake the kids or summon Andy and his Neighbourhood Watch buddies. Slowly, Pete upends the final few crumbs into his mouth where they melt away into nothing.

“Patrick,” he says conversationally. “Do my fancy French cookies suck?”

Patrick blinks at him. “They were utterly beyond compare. Never have I ever tasted macarons quite like them.”

“Patrick,” Pete says again. “Are you being generous with the truth, to save my feelings?”

Patrick looks very innocent. “Are you asking me if I’m lying?”

“Maybe.”

Patrick licks the last of the frosting from his mouth and then snags Pete by two handfuls of his hair, tugging him down until he’s close enough to kiss. Pete woozes, drunk on the proximity as Patrick whispers, husky and delicious and impossibly sexy, “I guess you’ll never know. How do they taste?”

When Patrick kisses him, deep and hard, he decides he doesn’t care at all. He licks into his mouth and then pulls back, breathless, his knuckles trailing softly over Patrick’s jaw. “Like you. But you’re sweeter.”

***

The thing about being a parent is that it’s supposed to be reasonably straightforward. You feed them, clothe them, tell them you love them and eighteen years later you wave them off to college. Well-adjusted. Ready to take on the world. Honestly, so far, Patrick thinks he’s done a pretty good job. He definitely feeds them, clothes them, and he tells them he loves them like, _all the time._ Because he does. He loves them so much it makes his throat seize a little if he thinks about it too much, like trying to contemplate the breadth and depth of the universe when he lies on his back at night and stares at the stars.

It’s infinite, is the thing. Endless. Eternal and boundless and uncountable. That is how much he loves his children.

But what if it’s not enough? What if there’s some fourth intangible thing that Patrick is _supposed_ to do as a parent. Something he’s missing out. Something he’s overlooked. Well, the Gorilla Biscuits said Start Today which seems like sound advice. He shouldn’t wait ten years when he’s scraping around for bail money for his legion of recidivists and reprobates.

Noah is easy enough. Talk about Fortnite, learn how to dab, watch him pirouette and plie. Harper needs frequent cuddles and daily Blue’s Clues and Avery… Well, Avery is entertained by her own toes so for the moment, Patrick isn’t too concerned.

But then there’s Caitlyn.

The confusing combination of pre-teen hormones and European grandmother protectiveness. The child who can slam the door to her room and declare she hates him right before she sits on the edge of his bed and tells him she’s worried about him. This means that Patrick, in turn, is very worried about Caitlyn.

So, he makes some calls when the children stop producing unspeakable things from both ends and he asks his mom to sit the younger three and he turns to her casually after school on Wednesday and says, “Would you like to go out for coffee with me?”

Caitlyn narrows her eyes at him with tangible suspicion. “I’m allowed coffee now?”

“Well.” Patrick shakes his head slowly. “No, you’re not allowed coffee, sorry. But you’re allowed, like, cocoa, which is super nice and I could stretch to a cruller, if that would sweeten the deal? I’ll even let you have marshmallows.”

“You said coffee,” she points out. She doesn’t add ‘fuck your marshmallows,’ but he hears it all the same.

“Caitlyn,” Patrick says, smiling, because she’s so like Pete when she tilts her head and presses her point. “You have a whole lifetime in which to become addicted to caffeine. Why rush? Coffee’s for college kids and stressed out parents. Coffee’s for — for _closers._ ”

Obviously she doesn’t get the Glengarry Glen Ross reference, even though Patrick thinks it’s pretty damn funny.

“A mocha?” she asks. “That’s _mostly_ cocoa.”

Now it’s Patrick’s turn to narrow his eyes. “Since when can you name breeds of coffee? And, by the way, the answer is still no, because that’s still coffee and you’re still 11.”

“It’s not _just_ coffee,” she says. “It’s also a _compromise._ You keep telling me that family harmony is built on compromise.”

Patrick sees the future: He sees a world dominated and run entirely by Caitlyn Stump-Wentz, Benevolent Dictator and Coffee-Loving Overlord. It’s terrifying, until he remembers the current president. Then it seems like it might be a good thing.

“Are we going for cocoa or not?” he asks, rather than attempting to debate with her further. There’s close to no chance of him winning this or any other battle.

She gives him a cool, appraising look. And then she smiles, big and wide and Wentzian. “Sure thing,” she says. “Anything to get out of algebra.”

“You’ll finish the algebra when we get back,” Patrick calls to her back as she darts to get her shoes.

“Uhuh.”

“The homework will be waiting!” he assures her. “It’s not going anywhere!”

“Sure it will, daddy. Sure it will.”

They go for coffee at the tiny independent coffee store he keeps in business with takeout cups bought between school runs and ballet practise and karate class. It’s quiet mid-week, enough that they can commandeer one of the insanely comfortable couches against the back wall. Quiet enough that the barista who knows him well enough to know his order switches the CD out for Bowie with a grin. Caitlyn revels in this celebrity treatment and he only compromises like, an _infinitesimal_ amount by allowing her half a shot of espresso in the bottom of her hot chocolate. There are so many marshmallows, so much whipped cream and powdered chocolate, that he convinces himself the sugar crash will far outweigh the caffeine jolt.

“So,” he says eventually, picking at his blueberry muffin. “I wanted to talk to you about… some things.”

“Some things?” she asks casually. “Or dad?”

 _Oh,_ thinks Patrick, _it’s going to be like that._

“Well, yes, your dad. Specifically, how are you feeling about the whole… thing?”

“Do you mean how do I feel about the fact that he stayed over at the weekend?” she asks, tearing tiny strips from her cruller and forming a small mountain range of shredded cake between them. She’s not looking at him, the focus of it extremely studious.

“He slept in the guest room,” Patrick points out, because Pete _did._ He slept there without question, entirely of his own volition, staying over only so he could help out with inevitable overnight diaper changes and vomit bowl cleaning. He was the perfect gentleman. “He wasn’t like, in my bed.”

“Oh God, please don’t give me the ‘when a daddy and another daddy love each other very much’ talk.” She rolls her eyes and Patrick woozes as every red blood cell in his body routes itself unanimously to his face. They have _never_ had that talk. They _will never_ have that talk because it’s biologically unnecessary to explain how anal sex works to his _daughter_. God, the internet has _so much_ to answer for. “Because, like, what you do with dad is your business, you know?”

“Except,” he says, stilling her hand and holding it until she looks up, “except it’s not only _my business_ , you know? Well, like, aside from the ‘daddy and another daddy’ stuff, that’s very much my business. This is why I’ve brought you here by yourself. I wanted to check in, to… make sure you’re okay with everything that’s going on.”

“I told you,” she shrugs. “If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

Patrick flounders for a moment and then he says, “But — I want _you_ to be happy. Please talk to me about this, I swear I’m not just stuffing you full of caffeinated bribes. I want to know how you’re feeling about everything.”

“I have no idea how you can trust him, that’s all,” she says after some consideration, and then she sips her drink carefully, like she can use the interlude to avoid his eyes.

Patrick watches her steadily. It’s hard to say _But what if I_ do _trust him?_ because Patrick isn’t sure he _does_ trust Pete but, confusingly, he _wants_ to trust him, and this is significant progress. Still, he won’t hurt his daughter for the sake of his own silly _feelings_.

“I don’t know if I trust him,” he says eventually. “I know I want to trust him, in some capacity, at some point in the future. But I also know that none of that matters if you absolutely don’t want him back in our house.”

“What are you saying?” she asks. “I feel like you’re asking questions but I don’t know what they are, so I can’t answer.”

Patrick scruffs his hands over his face and lets out a long breath. “I’m saying I won’t take your dad back if the two of us being together will make you miserable. I didn’t mean to sort of… throw him onto you again, you know? I know it was a huge upheaval for you when he left, and you’re barely used to that and now I’m messing things up and bringing him back into the equation. I think,” he pauses and thinks, “I think what I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to have your dad and I as a package deal. You’re allowed to want us separately. I’ll understand that. I’ll _respect_ that. So, like, basically—”

“Daddy,” she cuts him off gently, which is good because he suspects he might carry on going until diverted. “Would you calm down?”

“I am calm,” he assures her, not-at-all calmly. “I am the calmest. You could try to find someone calmer than me, but you would be unsuccessful.”

She mutters something under her breath, something affectionate, something that sounds like ‘dork.’

“I’m still your father and, technically, you’re supposed to at least _pretend_ to respect me until you turn eighteen,” he mumbles into the last of his latte. He’s downed it fast enough to burn, his mouth stinging slightly as he attacks his muffin with vigor.

“I don’t hate dad,” she says. “I don’t… want you to think that I do. He’s my dad, and he’s kind of an idiot and he’s, like, totally not perfect, but… he’s my dad. And I love him.”

Patrick mulls this over for a moment. “I mean, I was possibly starting to worry a _little…”_

“Yeah, no,” Caitlyn shakes her head, “I just want to know that _you’re_ happy. I don’t want you to take dad back so we can _be a family_ or something dumb like that, and then you’re like, super sad, just for us… You know?”

Patrick pauses and looks at her. She’s curled back into the couch cushions, hugging her coffee cup like it can protect her from whatever parenting inadequacies he hurls at her next. It’s not ridiculous, not really. It makes perfect sense. As a native of Divorce, he should’ve recognized the signs; the crushing guilt, the bladed heartache of trying to be enough to hold together a marriage and failing. Caitlyn doesn’t deserve that crushing depth of responsibility.

“Has anyone told you that you’re the most mature person in our family?”

“No one’s said it _out loud,”_ she shrugs casually and plucks a marshmallow from her cup, “But like, I don’t have a lot of competition since three of you are _boys_ and Harper and Avery are too young to really mess up my winning streak.”

“Boys are stupid,” Patrick agrees wholeheartedly. “We’re so, so ridiculous, it’s unreal. Just be thankful you’re not a gay guy, it just means there’s two emotional disasters in every relationship.”

“You’re not a _disaster,_ daddy,” Caitlyn insists. “Anyway, I am _not_ fixing a dumb _boy_ and his problems. I’m going to… well, I haven’t decided yet, but it’s going to be amazing and it’ll have nothing to do with _boys.”_

Patrick smiles. “So, is Jackson included in this?”

“Pfft, _Jackson,”_ she spits. “So immature. He told me he wanted us to ride together on the bus to the field trip next week — I told him I’m just not ready for that sort of emotional investment in a relationship. I told him he should see other people.”

“We.”

“We what?”

“It’s _‘we_ should see other people.’”

Harper rolls her eyes. “No. I’m not seeing _anyone_ else. _He_ can see other people, I’m just fine.”

“You,” Patrick informs her, “have been watching Dr Phil without my permission or supervision.”

She grins at him. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for the human condition.”

***

It’s inevitable that Patrick succumbs to the bug that the kids inflicted on the house like a medieval plague. It’s also predictable that he does this within hours of the do-over attempt to take the kids to the lake. The stomach part seems to have missed him, which is nice, but the _flu_ component is attempting to murder him in cold blood. He makes the mistake of glancing in the mirror in the hallway and jumps, terrified, when Ludo from Labyrinth blinks back at him, complete with scruffy red beard.

“Oh God,” he hisses. There are enough bags under his eyes to set the baggage handlers at O’Hare on strike. “This is fine. I’m totally fine.”

His reflection looks like it doesn’t believe him.

“Daddy,” Caitlyn says as he enters the kitchen. “You look… awful.”

“Thank you,” he mutters. “Your tact is appreciated.”

“Like, _so_ awful,” Noah assures him. “You look like someone took all the different Play Doh colors and smushed them together.”

“This is exactly what my self-esteem needs right now,” he assures his children. “Keep ’em coming.”

“You’re sick, daddy?” asks Harper. “You need me to get my doctor bag?”

“Dada!” Avery declares, giving him a medicinal poke in the eye. “Ffffboo!”

“Daddy is _fine,”_ Patrick insists, nursing his eye. “I’m fine and we’re going to the lake and everything is going to be absolutely fine.”

To prove exactly how fine he currently is, he pushes to his feet and moves towards the living room with determination. With a sense of theatrical timing, Pete bursts through the door looking handsome and dad-ish in his Star Wars t-shirt and shorts, his hair scraped back in a man bun. He looks like someone who declares himself a ‘risk taker’ for leaving his taxes until a week before they’re due. He looks like someone with a waterproof jacket tucked away under his band hoodies in the back of his car. The hair says he’s here to party, but the shorts say ‘but, like, in a reasonable and sensible way.’

“S-Ws major and minor,” he declares, in the middle of the hallway as children surge towards him. “Who’s ready for a day of awesome fun and adventure?” He pauses and looks at Patrick like he thinks Patrick might be suffering from several different plagues at once and is probably terribly contagious. Patrick considers the wisdom of consulting Dr Google. Or possibly a real doctor. Maybe one who specializes in sudden-onset cases of death. “Whoa, crap, Patrick! You look like — Well, you look like _crap,_ Patrick. Are you okay?”

Patrick opens his mouth to inform Pete that he is, in fact, perfectly fine and that everyone is free to stop making a huge deal out of a mild, totally not important 102-degree fever any time they like. Instead, like a moor-roaming heroine in a large-R Romantic novel, he gets as far as “I’m…” and then he falters, woozes and pitches directly into Pete’s arms.

It’s a good thing he passes out on the way down, or else he’d be really embarrassed about how needlessly dramatic it is.


	13. Chapter 13

It turns out that Patrick is the worst patient in Chicago. Maybe Illinois. Possibly the United States as a whole. Pete has a newfound respect for medical professionals and an understanding for the ones who keep upping the morphine until their patients pass out.

“Seriously,” Patrick says. “I’m—”

“If you tell me you’re fine _one more time_ , I’ll… well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but it’ll be super dramatic,” says Pete. “You literally — actually, _literally —_  passed out in the hallway. If I wasn’t there to catch you—”

“Like a big, manly man,” Patrick interjects sourly.

“Like a big, concussion-avoiding _bean bag,”_ Pete corrects, and then continues, “Then you would’ve split your head wide open on the hardwood. In front of our _children_ , Patrick.”

“I’m so lucky,” Patrick says. It doesn’t sound like he means it. “Lucky, lucky me.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Patrick glares at him. “Look, can you let me get out of bed, at least? We need to get to the lake.”

“Oh, no. Oh, don’t you _even dare,_ Patrick Martin Stump-Wentz. You’re not moving from this bed for the rest of the day.”

“Don’t full name me! You don’t get to full name me! You’re _not_ my mother, despite your excellent impersonation of her. You’re turning into your mother-in-law, Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz… _the third.”_

“Technically,” Pete says, pinning Patrick to the bed with nothing more than a strong will and a strategically placed bed sheet, “I’m only ‘the third’ if you take out the middle names. Start tossing those suckers around and I’m completely unique. Now, can I bring you anything? Cold drinks? Hot drinks? Hot guys? Flintstones chewable morphine?”

“You won’t win me over with Simpsons references,” Patrick grouses.

“I’m pretty sure our whole relationship is built on a foundation of Simpsons references,” Pete says, smoothing his fingers through Patrick’s hair. He’s so hot he burns under Pete’s palm. “Fucking hell, Trick, you’re like a lava monster.”

“Like Minecraft?” Noah says, from the doorway. “No, wait, that’s just lava. I wonder if the Ender Dragon would be a lava monster if I threw lava at it? I should try it — Hey, are we still going to the lake?”

“No,” Patrick says wearily.

“Uh, _yes,”_ says Pete, with great irritation. “Why would you say they’re not going to the lake?”

Patrick gestures expansively and disdainfully at himself, the bed and Pete. It’s clear in the trial of No Fun Saturday, this is Exhibit A. He seems to reserve most of the venom for Pete.

_“This,_ Pete. This… hostage situation. _This_ is why I think we’re not going to the lake.”

“You make it sound like Reservoir Dogs when, really, this is a lot more like Gray’s Anatomy. Or House! I can be House! I’m witty and cutting and _super_ smart. I should totally be House.” He peers closely at Patrick’s face, and, having accepted his role as the irritating spouse, begins poking Patrick’s cheek. “Patrick, I’m afraid you have a serious case of the grouchy pants. I’m going to have to ask you to remove your pants. For medical science.”

“I will murder you in cold blood,” Patrick assures him.

Pete sniffs. “You have no alibi and you’re way too pretty for jail.”

“Noah will be my alibi, won’t you, Noah?”

“Sure! Wait, what’s an alibi?” Noah asks.

“It means you’ll lie in court to make sure daddy doesn’t go to jail,” Pete informs him cheerfully, then he waits for Patrick to correct him.

“Alibis don’t have to be false,” Patrick corrects him. “That’s a _false_ alibi.”

“So I don’t have to lie?” Noah asks, puzzled.

“Oh, yeah no,” Patrick shakes his head. “You’re totally going to have to lie.”

“Riiight,” Noah says, clearly losing patience with this strange new game. “About the lake…?”

“We can’t go,” Patrick says. “Apparently I’m _‘sick.’”_

He throws sarcastic air quotes around the word despite the fact that he has a triple digit fever. Pete showed him the thermometer. This is willful ignorance.

This is what people mean when they talk about the patience of a saint. Pete feels exceptionally saintly. A lesser man would’ve smothered Patrick with a pillow and called it a mercy kill.

“You literally passed out in the hallway,” Pete reiterates patiently. “And anyway, you’re only one half of the Stump-Wentz parenting dream team.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow, which is a trick Pete didn’t know he could do. “Last time I checked, I was the _only_ member of the Stump-Wentz parenting dream team because _someone_ didn’t want to change his name.”

Well, _that’s_ unwarranted. Pete blinks, “I had legitimate reasons,” he says lamely, “I had a career and you _wanted_ to change your name. You could’ve stayed as a Stump, it wouldn’t have, like, _bothered_ me.”

It would, though. It would have bothered him very much. That’s going in the big box labeled ‘Things to Angst About at Three in the Morning.’

“Lake?” Noah repeats, sprawling across the bed and landing in cross-contamination proximity to his father. “Laaake?”

“He wants to go to the lake,” Pete says.

“I know, but he’s not a labrador, he can have just as much fun in the yard,” Patrick shrugs.

“That makes him sound even more like a labrador,” Pete says.

“Can‘t,” Noah pouts, flopping dramatically from side to side which does not, in fact, make him look any less like a labrador. “I need the lake. I _need_ it. I’ll _die_ without it.”

“He says he needs the lake,” Pete points out, and grins at Noah like they’re conspirators. “He says he’ll die without it.”

“Yes, thank you. I’m running a fever, I’m not _deaf,”_ Patrick says primly. “You can’t take four children to the lake. You could barely get four children to _school.”_

“That was a long time ago, I’ve grown a lot since then.”

“Pete,” Patrick looks thoroughly exasperated and also very, very sick, “it was barely two months ago. Even _Japanese knotweed_ doesn’t grow that fast. Besides,” he coughs weakly, “you can’t leave me alone, what if I die?”

“I called your mother,” says Pete, autotuned by the unmistakable sound of his mother-in-law’s car in the driveway.

Patrick blanches. “You did what now?”

Noah shouts, “Grandma!” and barrels off in the direction of the front door.

Pete gives his best, most sincere smile. “I figured I couldn’t leave you _alone_ , so I called your mom. She is, like, _so_ suspicious of me, you know.

“Yeah, anyone would think I’d spent the past five years bitching about you to her.”

“But once I explained I was taking the kids to the lake she was amazingly eager to come here and babysit you.”

“You couldn’t have called Will? Joe? Hell, I’d even take Gabe!”

“Those people were less than thrilled about the idea of spending time around you when you’re all overcome with mid-nineteenth century consumption,” Pete points out, which is to say that Will laughed so hard at the very notion of being a nursemaid for the day that Pete hung up on him and he would literally rather die than call Joe Trohman. “Your _mother_ , on the other hand, started making noises about chicken soup and Gatorade before I finished saying ‘your son has the cooties.’”

“Oh,” says Patrick faintly. “Good. Excellent. And I don’t have cooties.”

Pete experiences a surge of affection in the center of his chest that is so acute it makes his breathing stutter. He has this wonderful man, who he loves even when he’s grey and pale and probably super contagious. Well, he _almost_ has him. He’s beginning to think this is a battle he can win. He doesn’t have to look elsewhere, he never did. Absolutely everything he needs is here, under this roof.

He ruffles a hand through Patrick’s hair once more then wipes it off subtly on the leg of his shorts. No need to tempt fate or the laws of cross-contamination.

“Sweetheart, where are you!” Patrick’s mom shrieks operatically. “I have the Amazon on TV now, and your brother says I can use it on _your_ TV, too! We can pick whichever episode of Dr Quinn you want to watch!”

Okay, maybe not _everything_ that is currently under this roof is entirely necessary to his emotional well-being.

“I will fucking _kill_ Kevin,” Patrick mutters under his breath, squeezing the sheets like he’s imagining they’re the delicate parts of his brother’s throat.

Pete kisses Patrick’s hot, clammy forehead and squeezes his hand and says, “Enjoy Dr Quinn. The Amazon is an amazing thing.”

“If I die watching Dr fucking Quinn, I swear I’ll haunt you,” Patrick says darkly. “Hand to fucking God, Pete, hand to _God_. Also? Please don’t lose any of the kids.”

“I promise I’ll bring everyone back in one piece. Failing that, I’ll bring back all of the pieces so we can give them a proper burial.” Parenting is filled with dark humor. “Also? I love you.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says. “Yeah, love you, too.”

This is the first time Patrick has said it back. Pete doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

***

Patrick’s mom really goes all out on the task of taking care of him. It’s like there are several decades of pent up mothering just waiting to get out and she’s going to seize this opportunity like the Olympic torch and charge her way through his house in a whirlwind of maternal concern. She’s turned the air conditioning to a brisk sixty degrees, then countered it with so many blankets he feels like he’s on the Oregon Trail. Patrick is experiencing firsthand what it’s like to be in the center of an active tornado.

“Okay,” she tells him gleefully, like the sight of him prone, sweating, and unable to escape from his bed and lock himself in the bathroom is the most wonderful thing she’s seen all year. “I’ve got a choice of soup to warm you up and ice cream to cool you down. Do you want tomato and basil or chicken noodle? Chocolate or strawberry? I even got some of that weird non-dairy stuff in case you’re having one of those vegan phases again. Then we can watch Dr Quinn,” his face must express physical pain because she pauses, “or, if that’s not your thing, I hear they have _movies_ on the Amazon, too! We could watch Jurassic Park! Or Mrs Doubtfire!”

It’s like being nursed back to health by 1993.

“I’m really not hungry,” he says.

“Nonsense,” she tells him, brandishing two tins of Campbell's soup inches from his nose. He drifts gently cross eyed attempting to focus on them. “Pick one.”

“Chicken noodle?” he says tentatively.

“No, the lumps might hurt your throat.”

“Oh, well. Tomato then.”

“Good choice,” she says, approvingly; Patrick immediately regresses to being six years old. “Now, you just lie there and rest, I’ll be right back. You know, I never approved of having televisions in the bedroom, but this will be fun! Like a sleepover!”

Never has there been a scenario that is less like a sleepover. Patrick smiles weakly and prays for death to be swift and merciful. He wonders if he can fake a coma before she gets back and practises lying very still, his eyes closed, until his phone buzzes on the nightstand and he remembers that he has a clueless husband and four hyperactive children in the vicinity of open water and he lunges, panicked by visions of family tragedies.

Drowning himself and all four children is absolutely the kind of thing Pete would do.

It’s just a picture message though: five pairs of feet in the water, Avery’s toes curled against the cold, Harper’s shorts soaked already. _Wish you were here,_ Pete writes. Patrick’s heart lurches and his throat hurts in a way he blames on the infection. A sensible parent would text back and remind Pete that it’s still only May and that if anyone succumbs to hypothermia, he will divorce him without a second thought. Instead, he texts back, _last year’s wishes are this year’s apologies,_ and then his mom is back and he isn’t even in position to fake his coma.

“Soup,” she says brightly, in case Patrick forgot in the delirium of fever. She touches his brow and winces. “You’re burning up, my poor baby.”

“Thanks, ma,” he says. “But I’m thirty-five. I haven’t been a baby in quite some time.”

“You look at your kids in thirty years and tell me they’re not your babies and I’ll call you a liar,” she says, which makes him pause. Then, he eats his soup obediently and downs another shot of NyQuil and lets her queue up as many episodes of Dr Quinn as she likes because he hopes, one day, his kids will indulge him like this.

He’s drowsy when she mentions Pete, which is good, it means he doesn’t overthink what he says in response.

“How are things going?” she says casually, stroking his hair. “With Pete.”

“They’re… going okay,” he admits, thinking about anything but the blowjob on the living room floor. He’s devoted more thought to it than he wants to, it looms unbidden when he’s falling asleep, when he’s watching TV, when he’s driving the kids from one place to another. Now, he’s thinking about it again. He clears his throat and thinks other thoughts. “No, seriously, he’s making a lot of effort. It’s nice.”

“I don’t understand what went wrong,” she says. “The two of you were… When you came out to me, I was so worried. I thought I’d already gone through all of this with your sister, watching her make bad choices with bad men and I assumed — Well, I’m not saying mothers of sons who date girls have it easier, but... I worried. A lot.”

Patrick remembers terrible dates with terrible boys, the ones who wouldn’t acknowledge him in school but let him take care of their latent homosexuality in dark rooms at bad parties. It was funny — in that it wasn’t funny at all — how quickly internalized homophobia would become external when they had someone else to fire it at. “I know,” he says quietly. “I know you worried.”

“But then you brought Pete home,” she says, smiling distantly. “And I said to everyone, ‘I like him, Patrick has found one of the good ones.’ He made you so happy and the way he looked at you… You can’t fake that. God knows, your father and I tried, but you can’t — it’s there or it’s not. And the two of you had it.”

Patrick’s smile is painful. “Had.”

“Sweetheart,” she takes his hand, and squeezes softly, “you didn’t see the way he looked at you when I walked into the room earlier. I know things weren’t great and you were right to have the strength to walk away, but the way he looks at you now… Honey, he looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars, just for him.”

It’s very hard to breathe around the lump in his throat, his lungs too tight (which he blames on the fever) and his heart too fast (which he blames on too many pints of ice cream consumed on the couch and not enough running to burn away the inevitable clog of his arteries, he’s very blasé about his inevitable early death from coronary disease). He’s spent the past two months convincing himself that he’s imagining it, that there’s nothing left for Pete to destroy because they burnt it down years ago, razed it and torched the ashes for good measure. Lying under Pete on the living room floor, watching his eyes so bright and hungry and full of desperate adoration, Patrick was able to convince himself it was just the erection talking. There are no words to describe his relief that someone else sees it, too.

“I love him very much,” he croaks weakly. He feels lightheaded; maybe the NyQuil is kicking in.

“I know you do,” his mom says, tucking the blankets up to his chin and smoothing her hand through his hair. Patrick feels so entirely loved and cared for. “Sleep, get some rest. Everything will feel so much better when you wake up.”

***

It turns out that parenting doesn’t become easier with the addition of good intentions. Which is bullshit, really, because, despite all of the articles Pete has to approve about how ridiculous it is that snowflake Gen-Z kids get a medal for trying, he would genuinely appreciate a medal for trying right about now. Trying is _important_. Trying is what separates humans from animals. Or something.

So, _wanting_ to be a better parent doesn’t bring about good results. However, the addition of a papoose, stroller, minivan and fully-stocked diaper bag courtesy of a pre-plague Patrick is making the whole journey of discovery a lot easier, toxic masculinity be damned. For one thing, it means both the smallest children can be strapped into easy to contain spaces, no matter how much they scream about it.

“I told you,” he tells Harper, who is the one currently screaming. “I told you that if you ran towards the water _one more time_ , I’d put you in the stroller.”

“I hate the stroller!” she screams. She is very red which means she hates him very much, her ice cream clutched in her hands like a medieval mace. “I hate you! I’m a big girl!”

“Natural consequences,” he informs her voluminously, in spite of the glare he’s receiving from the old lady on the bench next to theirs. “Big girls don’t run towards bodies of open water when their father is impaired by a papoose.”

“Dad,” says Noah. “Did you know Avery is eating dirt?”

“That’s not dirt,” Pete insists. “It’s sprinkles. No, wait, it’s totally dirt. Come on, honeybee, spit that out.”

“Bleh,” says Avery, spitting a large mouthful of ice cream (and dirt) all over his shirt in a very obliging manner.

“For God’s sake, dad,” Caitlyn snaps, unclipping the straps of the papoose and hefting Avery into her arms before Pete can say ‘parental responsibility.’

She begins wiping the inside of Avery’s mouth with a baby wipe. This is a game Avery finds hilarious, and she demonstrates her amusement by biting Caitlyn with much savagery. The glare that Caitlyn gives him is so furious, so viscerally _unkind_ that he steps back and falters nervously with the empty papoose. This unsilent judgment of his parenting ability feels less like an insult and more like an expression of inevitability: Caitlyn has been _waiting_ for him to mess up because she doesn’t _believe_ he’s capable of handling her younger siblings for a whole afternoon.

This is nothing at all like the parenting books predicted. There wasn’t a chapter in The Wonder Weeks about how to deal with the fury of an 11-year-old daughter rejecting the very idea of her father coping with something as harmless as a tiny bit of ingested floor crust. At least, he _thinks_ it’s harmless. He flips through his phone quickly. Okay, good. Turns out dirt probably won’t kill Avery, after all.

“Thanks,” he says carefully. “But you don’t have to do that. It’s just a little dirt, it’s not—”

“Yeah? Because if I don’t, who will? You didn’t even _notice_ what she’d done with the ice cream, you didn’t even _care!”_ Caitlyn’s voice is louder than it needs to be. Or maybe not. Maybe this is the volume she needs to finally air the grievance she’s been clinging on to since the day Pete told her he didn’t have time for her first karate competition.

Avery’s lip begins to tremble and, in the stroller, Harper goes very still. Even Noah has stopped talking, perched on the edge of a bench, his head inclined slightly, although he’s staring at his shoes. This silence is the miracle Pete has been praying for since they landed through the gates of the park and promptly scatter-gunned in many different directions and he discovered how it felt to simultaneously have a heart attack and a stroke as he attempted to herd them back from the thronging masses. This moment is inevitable. Pete braces for impact.

“I’m trying my best,” he says quietly and thinks that no one is keeping him in this family for his emotional resilience.

“Your best?” Caitlyn sneers. “Your _best_ doesn’t even come close to daddy at his worst.”

Well, that stings more than Pete imagined it might. “Caitlyn, that’s enough—”

“You’re a _horrible_ dad!” she shouts. “You don’t care about any of us, you only care about yourself and the only reason you’re pretending you’ve changed is so that daddy will start taking care of you again and then you can go right back to sitting in your office and pretending we don’t exist!”

This is uncomfortably close to the thought process of Pete-from-two-months-ago.

“That’s not true!” he lies, which is a tactic he suspects Patrick wouldn’t recommend or approve of. Really, it’s only half-lie, he _did_ think that, he doesn’t think it any more. “I’m _trying_ , okay? I’m trying my best and you could at least meet me halfway and _attempt_ to make this a little bit more enjoyable for all of us.”

“I’m not here to make _your_ life easier,” Caitlyn says, like she’s mirroring Patrick’s thoughts. “I’m here to make sure my baby sister stays safe when _you_ don’t take care of her.”

“No, you’re not,” Pete insists. “You’re _here_ to eat ice cream and play in the lake and go for hot dogs that we won’t tell your daddy about when we get home. You’re here to be a goddamn _kid,_ Caitlyn, not some weird quasi-mom to your brother and sisters.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she insists, sounding like she’s splintering down the center. “You’re not my dad, you’re just my father and when daddy divorces you—”

“Stop it!” Noah begs from the bench. “Please, would you just… stop it?”

“Why are you on _his_ side?” Caitlyn asks, rounding on her brother. “He doesn’t even know when your next ballet recital is, he doesn’t even _care.”_

“I do care!” Pete objects. He is uncomfortably aware that he does not, in fact, know when Noah’s next recital is. “Noah, buddy, I’ll be there, I promise you. I’ll be front row center, you’ll see.”

Noah shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, dad. I know you have other stuff to do.”

“What? I don’t, I really don’t, it’s just…”

“Of course he does,” says Caitlyn. It’s clear she wants it to be vicious but her eyes are glassy and her lip is trembling and Pete has never seen a child in more desperate need of a hug. “He has a ton of better things to do and none of them are us, or daddy.”

“God, Caity,” he says and sits on the bench next to Noah. “Come here, would you?”

She looks as though she might refuse until something gives and she collapses onto the bench and into his side as he pulls her close. Noah curls under his other arm and Harper proves Harry Houdini was not a fraud as she escapes the stroller to clamber onto his lap and he holds them close. This cuddle puddle of responsibility. This collection of eyes like his and tempers like Patrick’s and smiles and tears and sticky cotton candy handprints left behind on his shirt.

“I just want everything to be okay,” she says into his chest. “I just want…”

“I love you all,” he tells them seriously. Avery shoves her fingers in his mouth and farts loudly. “Yes, Avery, you too. I love you all so much it scares me sometimes, because I don’t know what to do with all of these feelings I have inside of me. So, I run away from them, and I mess up, and I hide in the office, and I pretend that if I just… look away, then none of you will grow up. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you guys and your daddy but… Do you think you could give me a chance?”

The silence that follows is unbearable. Then, Caitlyn looks up with his eyes and his nose and his mouth in a hard, grim line and she hisses, “Oh God, dad. Avery _really_ needs a diaper change.”

“That’s the worst change of subject I’ve heard since…” He stops. He sniffs. He smells something not unlike untreated sewage. “Oh my God, Avery, what did you _do?”_

Avery babbles something very serious and long winded and then she pokes him in the eye. “Blee,” she shrieks, as if summing up.

“Caitlyn, now would be a really great time for you to do that capable parenting thing you’re so good at,” Pete informs her. He is joking. Mostly. If she actually offers to change the baby he will _probably_ say no.

“You’re on your own,” she tells him.

Pete climbs to his feet and grabs the diaper bag with a grim sense of determination. “Noah, stay there, Caitlyn keep an eye on your little sister. Kids,” he braces manfully and tilts his jaw. “I’m going to change a diaper. I may be some time.”

If they get the Captain Oates reference, they don’t find it funny. There’s a baby change facility a few hundred feet away. Pete hopes the diaper can last that far and hurries forward, Avery held as far from his body as he can hold her. He makes a mental note to tell Gabe that this is doing wonders for his shoulders.

“Good luck,” Noah calls, and dabs. It feels like the last rites.

Pete is fifteen paces from the bathroom.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He turns, still holding Avery at arm’s length. “Uh, me?”

“Yes, you.” The woman addressing him looks formidable in the way that middle school English teachers are formidable. Pete feels an overwhelming urge to come up with a plausible excuse for why he hasn’t completed his homework. “Is that baby yours?”

This question is so far out to left field that Pete can only boggle at her. He looks at her, then looks at Avery who giggles and kicks her legs and Pete is struck by the horrific vision of the future in which whatever is currently contained in her diaper works its terrifying way free.

“Um,” he says. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Blah,” says Avery cheerfully, kicking her legs once more. “Fffffboo.”

“Sir,” says the woman frostily. “Where are you taking that baby?”

Pete shrugs. “I mean, I was going to change her diaper, but depending on what I find in there I could be persuaded to reroute her to an adoption agency. Why?”

The woman steps aggressively closer. Instinctively, Pete steps back and pulls Avery to his chest. “Sir, where are that baby’s parents?”

This question makes absolutely no sense, which is exactly what Pete tells her. “That — Doesn’t honestly make any sense? Like — Why do you think I’d be changing the diaper of a baby if I wasn’t contractually obliged to change that diaper? Can’t you _smell_ her? There’s no way you can’t smell her, the people of _Wisconsin_ can smell her. Would _you_ change her diaper if you didn’t have to?”

“Where’s her mother,” she says pointedly.

Pete is in no mood to play Heterosexual Clue. “Don’t know. Haven’t seen her since I signed the check and bought the baby. Could you just…”

With that, he moves to step around this woman, who is clearly deranged, before something can make a bid for freedom from the leg of Avery’s holistically-sourced, organic cotton diaper.

“Help!” the woman shouts. “I need someone to help me! This man is trying to take that baby into the bathroom!”

There is no constituent part of that entirely accurate sentence that actually represents what Pete is attempting to do. Everything about what she just shouted is a demonstrative accolade to child abduction. Clearly, Pete is not a child abductor. He’s barely capable of taking care of his own kids, the last thing he needs to do is add any more. And then he takes a metaphorical step back and views the situation objectively: the brown-skinned man with this tiny little white girl, heading for a bathroom stall with all of the lolloping incompetence of someone who has very little in the ‘relevant skills’ section of his parenting resume.

“Oh, God,” he says to Avery. “She thinks I’m abducting you.”

“Dada,” says Avery helpfully.

“Listen,” Pete says, bewildered. “Like, I don’t know what you _think_ is happening here, but she’s my baby and she looks _just like_ her dad. Give me a second, I can show you a picture—”

Mentioning the presence of an additional father appears to do very little to soothe this woman’s inner homophobic racist. “Help!” she shouts again, piercingly loudly. “I need some help!”

“Ma’am?” says an approaching member of the Chicago PD, because _of course_ he asks the white person. “What seems to be the problem here?”

“I’m just trying to change my _daughter’s_ diaper,” says Pete.

She cuts over him, “This man is trying to take that child.”

“That’s so far from what’s happening here, seriously, I’m—”

“Sir,” says the officer. “Do you have her birth certificate?”

Pete does not say what he wants to say, which is ‘Oh, sure, let me just grab that from the diaper bag, I keep it tucked away next to the baby wipes and the organic fucking applesauce. Hey, why don’t you go and ask those ethnically-matched parents over there if they have _their_ kids birth certificate with them at the fucking lake.’ Pete says none of that, because Pete knows how this game works. This is the game that Butch plays, the one that reminds Pete every time that he is somehow less than everyone else in the office.

So, Pete lowers his head and sighs and mutters, “Not with me right now. Let me grab my other kids and we can figure this out.”

Something finally gives way and oozes from Avery’s diaper and onto his forearm. Somehow, it’s not the shittiest thing to happen to him all day.

***

They return in the evening with a force measurable on the Enhanced Fujita scale. They don’t talk so much as scream random anecdotes at Patrick as he blinks, dazed, on the couch. The house has been so quiet all day that his ears ring. He gathers they’re very excited about the fact that Pete hasn’t made them eat a single vegetable all day. Not one. It seems like this might be enough for the younger three to make the decision that if dad goes, they’re going with him.

Pete doesn’t talk much. He’s uncharacteristically quiet as everyone else prepares for bed, as they listen to stories and try to coax Avery into taking a step by herself. He stares at the floor and not at the baby as she rocks on her heels and shuffles and then thumps, rump-first, onto the rug with a screech. Patrick’s stomach stirs uneasily, filled with greasy, slippery eels that writhe against his guts until he’s sure he’ll throw up from this horrible, historic tension that surrounds Pete like an aura. He downs the NyQuil Pete hands him, takes the soup and the blanket and the fresh glass of water. Pete doesn’t say a word.

It carries on right through bedtime, as Pete loads the babies into their beds and then sits on the couch to watch a movie. Noah falls asleep halfway through and Pete carries him to his room without a word.

“Everything okay?” Patrick asks Caitlyn softly when they’re alone on the couch. “You can talk to me, if something’s bothering you?”

She shrugs and stares at the TV and doesn’t answer. Patrick’s whole world is slowly collapsing around him and he doesn’t know which wall to prop up first. But Patrick can’t say any of this to his daughter, in the middle of their living room, with Freaky fucking Friday playing on the TV (the original, _not_ the remake, Pete isn’t talking much but he was _very_ particular about that). So, he bites his thumb nail and stares at the TV and chuckles at all of the humorously appropriate places until Pete comes back. Then he waits for the movie to finish and urges Caitlyn up to her room.

“Daddy,” she says hesitantly, as he smooths her comforter and reaches for her lamp. “Don’t be too hard on dad, tonight. He’s had a difficult day, it — I probably didn’t make it easy for him.”

Patrick thinks about this as he strokes a few curls from Caitlyn’s face. She’s so grown up in so many ways that he forgets how young she is with alarming frequency. The intention was never for her to bear the brunt of her parents’ mistakes.

“Dad is an adult,” he reminds her gently. “If he has something to tell me, he can do it in his own time and you are not responsible for an adult’s emotions, okay?”

“I’m trying not to be,” she says and smiles a crooked little smile. “The two of you need some help sometimes, though. Just promise me you’ll take it easy on him.”

“I promise,” he assures her, even though he doesn’t think he means it. “Goodnight, love you.”

“You too.”

He finds Pete staring at the blank television screen. He looks so vulnerable that Patrick can’t help himself; he crosses the room and he kneels in front of Pete and he wraps his arms around him. Pete tilts his head, which bowls his throat and gives Patrick’s mouth the perfect place to rest as he leans in and smells Pete’s skin. This could be one of his favorite places to be, drowning in the scent that doesn’t linger on his pillows any more. When he speaks, his voice is not as firm as he wants it to be.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or am I going to have to send you back to your mom until you’re done sulking?” Patrick asks.

Pete leans forward, rests an elbow on his knee and scruffs the hand that isn’t looped into Patrick’s belt through his hair. There’s a special little twist in Patrick’s gut for the vulnerability of the act, the way he deflates down to nothing as he breathes out and addresses the edge of the rug under the coffee table as he speaks.

“When we were at the park, someone accused me of trying to abduct Avery.”

“What?” Patrick blinks. Of all of the possible responses he imagined, that was not one of them. “I mean — _What?”_

“She asked me where I was taking her and where her parents were,” Pete says, and his voice is calm on the surface but cracking just beneath. “I explained that _I’m_ her parent but ,apparently, sweet little white girls don’t belong to guys like — Well, guys like me. Especially guys like me who don’t have a nice, white mom on hand to smooth things over.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t—”

“Look, don’t tell me what it wasn’t okay? There was a fucking cop. I had to get the kids to vouch for me, I thought they were — I don’t know! I thought they were going to take us all down to the station until my acceptably pale husband could come along and prove he owned the rest of us, or something.”

Patrick is not prepared for this. This anger and sense of injustice that tastes bitter at the back of his tongue. It rocks him like a detonation, like the world is ash and rubble under the soles of his shoes. He takes Pete’s face in his hands and tips him up, looks at him and promises himself he won’t speak until he has control of his voice and his thoughts. Right now, all he wants to do is attack, to call up every person with an ounce of authority and demand to know who did this to his family, how they intend to put it right.

“Babe,” he says quietly. He shuffles on his knees and loops his arm over Pete’s shoulders, pulling him close. “Babe, I — That is so fucked up. I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Pete mutters into Patrick’s neck. “Not like it’s your fault, you didn’t send the bitch to check on me. At least, I hope you didn’t.”

“Can confirm,” Patrick says. “Fuck. I don’t know what to say.”

Patrick can feel Pete’s skin against his heartbeat, can smell the spiced musk of his cologne under his hair product. The room is silent, save for the quiet murmur of Netflix trailers in the background, the tick of the air conditioning unit, the click of Penny’s nails on the hardwood as she comes to investigate and licks Pete’s exposed shin in a very commiseratory manner. This is not something they put in the parenting books. The surrogacy guides and articles don’t warn about this, or if they do, it’s buried somewhere unnoticeable.

Pete says, “Come on, back on the couch, you’re still sick.” He pauses as Patrick wriggles under the blanket then sighs. “When you’re out with the kids, does anyone ever ask about the older three?”

“People see what they want to see,” Patrick says simply. “They see me and assume the kids have a black mom and Avery is their half sister. They think I adopted the older three and then got lucky. They think… I don’t even know what they think, I guess no one’s ever felt the need to tell me. I’m sorry they looked at you and saw something so… so…”

He falters, but Pete does not. “Racist,” Pete supplies helpfully and Patrick’s heart breaks, just a little. “They see me with Avery and they think something racist. But what’s super fun is they get an unexpected two-for-one when they find out the truth and they get to turn it into something homophobic.”

“I mean…”

“Don’t,” Pete laughs, too fast and too loud. “God, don’t even tell me they might not be both. I’m not saying all racists are homophobic but, like, I’ve never met a homophobe who wasn’t racist.”

“Everyone is awful,” Patrick agrees, threading a hand through Pete’s hair and resting his forehead against Pete’s. “They’re all ridiculously awful and we’re the only two sane ones in the northern suburbs.”

There are no words left to say. There’s nothing to add because the world is awful and people are terrible and sometimes, those two truths collide to produce the kind of shitstorm Pete was forced to tolerate in Gillson Park. Instead, all he can do is hold Pete close and stroke his hair until Pete shifts and sits up.

“I’m getting a beer,” he says, pushing to his feet and heading for the kitchen.

Patrick stiffens. Don’t mess it up, don’t make it obvious. Casual, casual. Everything is fine.

“Don’t do that,” Patrick says and wants to bite off his tongue. Instead he shifts against the couch and clasps his hands and stares at the floor and waits for Pete to argue.

Pete sighs, his shoulders tense, his hands fists at his sides. “Why not?” he asks carefully.

“I don’t know,” Patrick shrugs helplessly, even though Pete isn’t looking at him. “I just thought… You’ve been doing so well and you don’t need…”

“Wow,” Pete says sarcastically. “So Will wasn’t kidding, huh? You really think I’m an alcoholic.”

“That’s not what I think and that’s not what I told Will. I’m worried about you, and I’m worried about the way you cope with stress by drinking.”

“You have nothing to worry about.”

To prove that Patrick has a lot to worry about, Pete continues towards the kitchen.

“I don’t want to force your hand,” Patrick says. He’s still curled under his blanket on the couch. He feels very vulnerable and very small. “But if you get a drink, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the house and you won’t be coming back until you get some therapy.”

Pete pauses. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t think you _need_ therapy,” Patrick continues. “In the same way I think you know you don’t need that drink. So, I’m asking you to come and sit down, with me, and work through your problem without trying to numb yourself up. Just come here, sit on the couch with me and hold me until it doesn’t—”

“Don’t say ‘until it doesn’t matter,’” Pete says quietly. “It’s always going to matter.”

“Until it doesn’t hurt as much,” Patrick finishes gently. “Just hold me until you realize how much I love you and how happy I am that _you’re_ the father of my children and how wrong they all are.”

Pete turns in the doorway, silhouetted by the kitchen light behind him and the relative gloom of living room with its staticky grey light from the television. Patrick’s mouth is so dry his tongue feels like it’s gummed to the roof of his mouth, his breathing shallow and too fast, too fast. Because he doesn’t want Pete to grab a beer or his keys. Life is an inevitable mess of ups and downs, the slowly rising crank of a rollercoaster with the terrifying reality of the drop on the other side. It’s not clean and perfect and manicured lawns and Saturday mornings spent washing the car. Patrick wants Pete to brace for the drop and ride it beside him and he didn’t realize, until this particular moment, how terrified he is that Pete won’t be able to make it.

“Please,” he says. “Please, Pete. Just — Come here. Let me show you how we raise our middle finger to the world. Please.”

He holds his breath, still on the couch, and prays with each desperate throb of his heart that Pete will make the right choice. It feels like a lifetime of this endless standoff, Patrick waiting until his bones ache with it, then Pete makes his choice, moves with determination and without looking back. His shoes squeak on the hardwood, Patrick can hardly hear them over his pulse in his ears, can’t see him because he’s closed his eyes and they don’t want to open.

“Goddammit,” Pete mutters against Patrick’s mouth, his hand fisted into Patrick’s hair.

“Yes,” Patrick babbles, insensibly and far away, nodding and wriggling and hauling Pete onto the couch with him. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Pete kisses him.


	14. Chapter 14

It becomes easy. 

It happens so exactly, so wonderingly, like a newly examined truth Pete didn’t imagine possible, but things… shift. They realign and come back together and suddenly it’s like the Oreo cookie is whole once more and they’re doing things the way they used to. Example: sometimes, Patrick will cross the kitchen just to rest his hand in the small of Pete’s back as he stirs something on the stove under exacting instruction. Sometimes, Pete will move behind Patrick in the living room and drop his mouth to the breadth of Patrick’s shoulder, just to feel the warmth of him vibrating through his shirt, to smell that dark, Patricky smell that lingers in the cotton. 

Their marriage is no longer a loaded gun between them. Their interactions don’t feel like endless rounds of Russian roulette, waiting for the conversational bullet that will kill it stone dead. They laugh together, they joke, they _flirt._ Noah doesn’t get it and Caitlyn says it’s sickening but Pete loves it more with every pulse of his heart, with every touch of Patrick’s fingers to the back of his neck. They haven’t watched this many 80s movies since they first moved in together. Pete is so hungrily in love — with the way Patrick smiles at him, the way Avery falls asleep on him — that he never feels full. 

Pete sits on the touch and watches his family riot around him. Caitlyn is arguing with Patrick about a finer point in their homework negotiation. Patrick appears to be losing. Noah is doing something complicated with a fidget spinner, attempting to balance it on the tip of Harper’s nose because he’s convinced this is how they make their fortune on YouTube or… something. Noah’s pretty vague on the specifics and Harper won’t stand still anyway.

Pete turns to Avery, nestled into his side and chewing on her fist as she watches her siblings.

“Baby girl,” he says seriously and she blinks up at him with her impossibly wide eyes, “I think we’re the only sane ones in the house. How’s that figure?”

Avery babbles, something lengthy and serious, and bats her wet little fist against his thigh. They should’ve eaten dinner an hour ago but no one is complaining and Pete’s got the local pizza places on speed dial. He can enjoy this tableau of domesticity for a moment or two longer.

“Babe,” he calls to Patrick. “Hey, babe?”

“One second,” Patrick holds up a hand in Pete’s direction then turns to Caitlyn, “And honestly, no, I can’t _promise_ you that you’re going to use algebra in your day-to-day life as an adult, but what I can _promise_ you is that your teacher is not going to care about your long-term career plan when your homework is due, so… your call, kiddo.”

“I hate this family,” Caitlyn growls in that aggressively certain way that children have when they know the family that they hate loves them endlessly.

Pete grins at Avery. “Never grow up, never start talking,” he says. Avery grins back, the white pearls of her teeth very shiny in her pink, wet gums. “You’ll always stay my favorite if you never learn how to sass mouth.”

“You have a _favorite?”_ Caitlyn snaps. “And it’s _Avery?_ You could’ve picked any of us but you pick the one who can’t even control where she poops?”

“Blah!” Avery squeals and claps her chubby little hands together.

“Dad,” Noah shrieks. “Look! We’re doing it! We’re doing it!” The fidget spinner rotates lazily on his little sister’s forehead until she sits up and it rattles to the floor. “Did you see that?”

“Oh, I saw it. This is it, this is where we make our millions.”

“We can join the circus!” Harper says, beaming.

“Are they looking for _clowns?”_ Caitlyn asks, with immeasurable sarcasm.

“Honk honk!” Harper shouts, squeezing Noah’s nose.

“Take my kids,” Patrick mutters. _“Please.”_

Pete watches this play out in front of him with delight, with fervour, with a warm, pooling contentment that seeps through his skin and into his veins, his blood, his marrow and bones. It heats him from the inside out. He leans down and kisses Harper’s cheek as she rushes past him and laughs, enraptured, as she pulls a face and wipes it from her skin with the back of her hand. These kids, this husband, this full-to-bursting house like his full-to-bursting heart. 

He’s on his feet and setting Avery onto the rug, prowling toward Patrick, soundtracked by the radio on the countertop. They’re playing Costello, he thinks, Pump It Up, and Patrick shrieks indignantly as Pete wraps his arms around Patrick’s waist and spins him like a ballroom dancer. Only Pete can’t dance. And Patrick isn’t expecting it. So, they crash inelegantly into the refrigerator door for a moment, scattering alphabet magnets as the kids fall silent for a multitude of different reasons from shock to delight to disgust. 

“What are you _doing?”_ Patrick demands, as Pete swings him around by the hips and seizes his hand, pulling them nose to nose and pecking him briefly on the mouth. 

“Dancing,” he says. “Obviously.”

“Oh,” Patrick arches an eyebrow as Pete shoves him gracelessly to the left and steps on his foot. “Ow! Yeah, dancing. _Obviously.”_

“I can dance,” Pete says, twirling away to roll his hips like Ricky Martin. His reflection in the kitchen window tells him he looks more like someone in the early stages of a seizure. 

“You’re doing a good job, dad!” Harper tells him encouragingly. 

“That’s my girl,” he grins at her with a wink.

“I think I want to be adopted,” Caitlyn declares. 

“Hmm,” Patrick says, smiling with the corners of his mouth. Then he stalks dramatically towards Pete and drops into a flourished bow, his hand extended. “May I have this dance, pretty lady.”

“Lady?” Pete says, his eyebrows raised. “I’m the lady now?”

“You can’t lead. I’m saving both of us from embarrassment and broken toes.”

“Why, I do declare, kind sir,” Pete fans himself dramatically as Avery shrieks and Harper giggles and Noah executes a pirouette and Caitlyn sinks further into her seat, “I thought you’d never ask.”

Patrick waltzes him clumsily around the kitchen and into the family room, an aimless one-two-three across the checkered tiles and onto the hardwood. The last time they danced like this, they wore matching suits and matching rings. Another life, another world, another Pete and Patrick in a Canadian wedding venue. When they legalized same-sex partnerships, they threw a small party, popped champagne as they signed the paperwork to convert their Canadian marriage into something recognized in the US. 

When they legalized gay marriage, he barely remembers signing the form. 

“I love you,” he says sincerely.

“Love you, too,” Patrick says, and kisses him, then dips him with a flourish. 

Pete isn’t expecting it. He crashes the floor and drags Patrick down with him. They land with tangled arms and legs and laughing into one another’s mouths. They land on the edge of the rug, three feet from Avery as she grips the edge of the coffee table. 

“Oh God, _gross,”_ Caitlyn hisses, nudging Pete’s shoulder with her toes, her laughing eyes and smiling mouth so bright, sharp, lovely. 

“You both suck,” Noah tells them sincerely. “So bad.”

“Me next!” Harper begs.

Amongst the noise and the laughter and the mess of men sprawled across the rug, Avery lets go of the coffee table. As Pete watches, enchanted and with his heart in his mouth, she wobbles back and forth, heels to toes. The room holds its breath. The city itself stops moving and watches, watches, waits. Patrick’s hands bite into the breadth of Pete’s shoulders, his pulse fluttering in his throat. 

Then, hesitant and cautious, Avery stretches forward and takes three uneven steps across the rug and into Pete’s arms. 

***

“How’s the wife? Her hormones under control again?” 

Butch leans against the corner of Pete’s desk and smiles down at him. He’s not even trying to be a dick, his arms crossed, one foot kicked out as he admires his shoes. Is it better or worse when homophobia is so casual it doesn’t even register as a bad thing? Pete flexes his fingers and feels his mouth shift into the bland, disinterested smile he reserves for conversations like this. 

“Hmm,” he says. 

“I don’t know why I’m laughing…” Butch trails off. This is good because Pete doesn’t know why he’s laughing, either. “I mean, you probably get fucked more than the rest of us combined. Everyone knows women hate sex and then there’s you, some insatiable stay at home daddy, going home to dinner on the table and his husband on his knees, am I right?”

“Wow,” Pete says. “Hey, Mikes, you hear that? Butch thinks women don’t like sex.”

Mikey attempts to become one with his chair. “Uh…”

“Oh like you’d know,” Butch rolls his eyes. 

“Women like sex,” Pete continues pleasantly. “I had one of those gross straight phases back in college and I can tell you — _as a gay man_ — that women enjoyed fucking me. This is supposed to be your specialist area. I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

Butch is turning an interesting shade of heart attack. “Fuck you,” he snaps. “I’m just saying, it must be nice to have some cock-hungry fatty on his knees for you.”

Pete leans back in his chair slowly. There is a marching band tuning up behind his ribs, the bass drum out of time. He reminds himself that people like Butch will never change. He fossilized in the nineties, back when it was still vaguely accepted to call people like Pete a faggot. Pete has been called a faggot by people like Butch — _by Butch_ — since before he knew how to come out swinging. He’s learnt to take it, to internalize it, to join in and laugh about it because, after all, _it’s only a joke_.

His sexuality, his husband, his _family_ , no longer feels like a punchline.

“What did you say?” he asks pleasantly.

“I said it must be nice, you know? He feeds you, he fucks you, he watches baseball with you. The only downside is he still wanted kids but, like, at least he’s the one taking care of them, right? No femimist bullshit where you earn the cash _and_ wipe the baby’s ass in _your_ house. Just wall to wall blowjobs and a husband who knows he can fill his mouth with donuts when he’s not filling it with your dick. Plus, you ever tried to talk a woman into taking it up the ass? You’ve got it made. It’s a compliment, I’m saying it’s a _good_ thing.”

Pete stands up. He’s not a tall man, but he takes two steps forward and Butch takes one step back. Butch raises his hands and his eyebrows, his palms forward. The hot well of Pete’s fury is black and sticky in his gut. He’s still smiling. 

“You are no longer permitted to talk about my husband,” he says softly. 

The office has fallen quiet. The wolf pack holds its breath collectively as they watch Pete take another step forward. Butch doesn’t move. They’re now toe to toe and breathing one another’s air. Pete has to look up to meet Butch’s eyes but he is not intimidated. Not right now. 

“The fuck bit your ass? Your panties too tight?” Butch barks out a laugh but, for once, no one joins in. 

Pete grabs Butch by the collar and doesn’t think about things like professional misconduct. He barrels forward and Butch trips quickly backwards until his back meets the wall and his chest connects with Pete. His eyes are very wide and his breathing is quick, sharp. Pete keeps his steady, doesn’t let his hands shake, he holds impossible eye contact with Butch and he smiles slowly.

“You don’t make comments about my life,” he says, slamming Butch firmly into the wall with each word. Aggressive, alpha male punctuation because it’s the only thing Butch will understand. “You don’t talk about me, or my sex life, or my family. And if you say _anything_ like that about my husband again, I will fucking _destroy_ you. Do you understand?”

Butch squirms, shoving at Pete’s hands. “Get the fuck off of me, fag.”

“No,” Pete says sharply, like he would reprimand a puppy, one finger in Butch’s face. “Bad. _Bad_ word.”

“I have so many witnesses,” Butch hisses, “this is it for you, Wentz. They all see you.”

If he loses his job for this, he’s decided it’s worth it. If The Tribune wants to paint itself as a supporter of racism, homophobia and the new American way, he’ll sue them with a smile. He knows a good lawyer. Butch stares at him. No one in the office makes a sound. 

Pete brings his mouth to Butch’s ear and says, very softly, “I don’t think they’re on your side, old man. Stay away from me. Don’t talk about my family to me or anyone else.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“That depends. Do you want to go to HR and tell them you’re afraid of a fag?”

Butch is tense. Pete swallows his heartbeat in the back of his throat and sweats through his palms and over Butch’s shirt. He waits, his knuckles tight, his colleagues quiet and stares Butch in the face. 

“Whatever,” Butch says, pushing away from Pete and the wall and the office. 

He doesn’t add an insult. Pete’s pretty sure this means he’s won. 

***

“I want the record to show that I am very displeased with this turn of events,” Patrick says dubiously, scuffing his toe against the sidewalk.

The toe in question is clad in a pair of Vans that seemed cool when he stood in front of the closet – but in an age-appropriate, dad-friendly way – now he’s convinced they make him look like he’s trying to relive his teens. He wants to grab the nearest passerby and assure them that this isn’t a midlife crisis because he was in no way cool enough to wear sneakers like this when he _was_ a teenager. He wants to tell them that he wasn’t even cool enough to own the knock-offs.

Pete, on the other hand, looks delicious in the iridescent glow of the city lights. His hair is loose, fanning around his face and casting soft, interesting shadows across his cheekbones. He’s wearing a flannel over a plain white vest, and his shoes don’t look like he dug them out of the municipal dump. He is the only man in Chicago – possibly the only man in the _world_ – who can make khakis look sexy. Every time Patrick leans close to him, he can smell something peppery and spicy, expensive cologne and beard oil and hair product. He takes a lot of opportunities to lean in close, to sniff surreptitiously, to run his hand over the long, smooth planes of Pete’s lats. 

For someone with no desire to join a gym, he is obsessed with the way Pete’s body looks, the way it feels under his hands. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pete says innocently. “This is going to be a lot of fun. I planned it that way, that’s how you know it’s going to be fun.”

Patrick frowns. “Hmm. The thing is, you can’t really _plan_ fun, can you? And like, seriously, my idea of fun these days is a pint of ice cream and something on Amazon.”

“Dr Quinn?” Pete asks casually.

“I will throw you in front of a passing car before you can say ‘and he lived out the rest of his life in luxury, thanks to the insurance check.’”

“Bold of you to assume I’m insured.”

“Bold of you to assume I haven’t insured you for just this purpose.”

“You’re very aggressive. You should relax more. Hey, do you know what’s supposed to be super relaxing?”

Patrick looks at the bar front once more and shoves his hands down into the pockets of his skinny jeans. He sighs, cocks his head and, with a sense of great inevitability, he says, “Are you going to say karaoke?”

“Yes!” Pete beams at him and links his arm through Patrick’s. “God, it’s like we’re on the same wavelength sometimes, you ever feel that?”

“Yeah,” Patrick mutters ominously. “It’s almost like you’re asking me loaded questions when we’re standing in front of a karaoke bar.”

“You’re accusing me of leading the witness?”

“You’re physically leading me right now,” Patrick points out as Pete tows him towards the door. “I’m not singing, just so we’re clear.”

Pete frowns. “No, you _have_ to sing,” he says earnestly. “There’s no point in us even being here if you won’t sing.”

The thought of getting up on stage is unbearable. In his sad, tight dad jeans, in his previously unworn The Who shirt that looks like he bought it from eBay two days ago, his teenage sneakers, his cap that covers his bald spot. His skin feels too tight, itchy, blotching up already with heat and secondhand embarrassment for the Patrick who would climb up onto the twelve-inch riser and belt out covers of Sweet Home Alabama or Sweet Child of Mine.

“I can’t sing,” Patrick says firmly. 

“Uh, demonstrably untrue,” Pete says, like Patrick is an idiot. “I know we’re only on date number eight but, like… you do remember that we’ve been together for fifteen years, don’t you? I _know_ you can sing.”

“I can sing, but I _can’t_ sing in _public._ There’s a difference. A huge one.”

They get inside without anyone stopping them at the door and informing Patrick that he’s too overtly dadish to be allowed over the threshold. Pete ushers him into a booth and begins to peruse the song list and the drinks menu with equal levels of intensity. On the stage up front, backlit by purple mood lighting, three women are engaged in an aggressive three part vocal harmony of TLC’s perennial hit _Waterfalls._ They appear to have _practised._ They appear to have _choreography._ Patrick’s sweating intensifies. 

“This seems competitive,” Patrick hisses at Pete, when the women are replaced by a man who seems to believe he _is_ Justin Timberlake. “Like… this is way more competitive than it used to be when we were in college.”

“You’re still the best,” Pete says, with the confidence of a man who wasn’t listening when Patrick told him he’s not going to sing. “You’re always the best. You should’ve gone pro.”

“Pete,” he says slowly. “I’m not singing, in this or any other weird, alternate universe. I want to make that very clear.”

“Sure,” Pete nods. It’s clear he’s already decided that Patrick _will_ sing. 

What Patrick needs is for Pete to stop making these aggressively affectionate assumptions about him. When Pete was making assumptions that were just aggressive, they were so much easier to deal with. But now, Pete’s sitting opposite him at a table in a respectable karaoke bar in the North Side, his chin propped on his hand as he grins at Patrick with all of his teeth. This Pete is impossible — to resist, yes, but also just _impossible._ On stage, JT hits a note so high Patrick feels his own testicles invert back into his body. He winces and begins frantically scanning the drinks menu for something that will dull the pain. 

“I’m not singing,” he says decisively. “I want to make that clear.”

Pete nods. “Of course.”

“You can’t make me”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Pete considers the song list, “I was thinking I might get up and do a number. What do you think?”

Patrick looks at him, baffled. 

“You?” he says. Which he realizes is unforgivably rude but, seriously, he’s heard Pete sing, he has _no idea_ why he would want to subject the denizens of this bar to the aural assault. “I mean… _you?”_

“Well, I mean, if you want to get up instead, then you could spare me the embarrassment and all of these good peoples’ eardrums.”

“Ha,” Patrick says. “Nice try, but the only embarrassment I’m going to be feeling tonight is secondhand, for you. Which I’ll feel when you get up there and murder Build Me Up Buttercup.”

Pete pouts a spectacular pout, and Patrick thinks about kissing it, about biting it from the corner of Pete’s mouth until it’s all he can taste on his tongue. The last defense walls he built and maintained over the past few years are crumbling. He’s falling but with the knowledge that Pete will catch him this time. He takes Pete’s hand over the table and rubs the pad of his thumb over Pete’s knuckles. 

“You’re wearing your wedding ring,” Pete observes. Patrick hums his agreement and thumbs over the webbing between Pete’s thumb and forefinger. He would like to get drunk, but he won’t because it’s hypocritical. Anyway, he already _feels_ lightheaded and strung out, alcohol is probably no advisable. 

“They do virgin cocktails,” he observes casually.

“A virgin Sex on the Beach,” Pete frowns. “Isn’t that an oxymoron? Shouldn’t they call it like… a Heavy Petting in the Dunes?”

Patrick laughs. He finds Pete so utterly ridiculous sometimes, so charming. “You’re the only person I know who says ‘heavy petting’ aside from my grandma.”

“Your grandma knows what’s up,” Pete says. “Wait here.”

He heads for the bar and Patrick breathes slowly. He watches someone who sings worse than Pete butcher their way through an off-key rendition of My Way with his head tipped to one side and his eyes half-closed. He admires their self-confidence, really he does. They have to know that they suck, but they’re up there anyway and that’s admirable. Pete comes back with two glasses of fruit juice and sliced pineapple and maraschino cherries and paper fucking umbrellas. Patrick can barely get his mouth to the sugared rim without risking the loss of an eye.

Pete raises his glass in a toast. “To falling in love,” he says, as My Way hits a particularly duff note and Patrick winces. “For a second time.”

“To falling in love,” Patrick agrees, and fights his way to a mouthful of orange juice and grenadine. “Thank you.”

Pete frowns. “For what?”

“For applying yourself to this whole ten date thing,” Patrick shrugs. “Honestly, I thought you’d make a half-assed effort, get bored and we’d instruct lawyers. But… yeah. Thank you. For falling back in love with me and for falling in love with the kids. I take back half the awful things I said about you.”

“Only half?” Pete asks, and raises an eyebrow.

Patrick’s grin is a wicked slash of a smirk across his mouth. “Sure. The funny ones still stand.”

“Song choice,” Pete says, poking the registration slip in Patrick’s direction. 

Patrick considers the paper and pencil and licks his lips thoughtfully. “If I sing,” he says, “and I’m not saying I definitely will, just for the record, but _if_ I sing… You’re not allowed to know what I’m singing. It has to be a surprise.”

Pete thinks about this and scrawls his own song choice across the paper. “Deal. But you’re not allowed to look at mine, either.”

“Oh God,” Patrick groans. “You’re actually going to sing?”

“Watch and learn, Trick. I’m an expert.”

Pete is not an expert. He proves this fifteen minutes later when he gets up and belts out Dolly Parton louder and flatter than any man should in a public space. He’s silly with it, though. He blows kisses to Patrick and dances — badly — across the stage and back again during the instrumental. He steps down from the stage to applause and no one asks them to leave so it probably wasn’t as bad as Patrick thinks it was. He’s not sure he’ll ever stop cringing on Pete’s behalf, though. 

Then the compere calls Patrick’s name. 

“You have the voice of an _angel,”_ Pete beams at him. “Knock ‘em dead.”

“Don’t say that when there’s a real possibility I’m about to die of a heart attack,” Patrick mutters, climbing to his feet like a man walking the green mile.

Patrick fumbles with the mic in his hand and wishes, more than anything, that karaoke bars allowed accompanying instruments because this would feel a lot less terrifying if he had his guitar to hide behind. But karaoke means empty orchestra which, in turn, means they don’t allow guitars. He supposes, if they did, that would make them open mic nights and wonders if, next time, Pete could be tempted into one of those. He has no idea why he’s thinking about next time. God, he hasn’t performed in front of an audience in thirteen years. Then the music starts and he can’t run away because at least half of the people in the room are looking at him and bolting will make him look ridiculous. _Even more_ ridiculous.

He wipes his sweaty palm off on the leg of his jeans, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them, he promises himself he’s not going to look anywhere but right at Pete. Not as a romantic gesture, but so that Pete can fully appreciate the emotional trauma he’s causing. It will be a look loaded with revenge, he thinks, not romance.

Then he opens his eyes and his mouth and begins to sing, “I’ve been really tryin’ baby, tryin’ to hold back this feeling for so long, and if you feel like I feel baby, come on, yeah, come on, let’s get it on…”

It’s definitely easier once he’s singing, but that’s like saying it was easier for the scientists in Jurassic Park 4 when the volcano erupted. It dealt with the dinosaurs, but also, _a volcano erupted,_ so whilst he’s dealt with the issue of starting to sing, he now has to confront the fact that he’s _singing_ in front of _people_ who are _actively listening to him._ He wipes a sweaty palm over his sweaty face which is less effective at getting rid of sweat than he hoped it might be.

He meets Pete’s eyes. Pete is smiling, a wide, dazed smile that tips the corners of his slightly open mouth. He looks like he’s close to passing out. He looks like he does at the apex of a really, really, _really_ good orgasm. Patrick’s gut clenches tight and his voice cracks and he misses the push of ‘ _so much to give’_ and clears his throat instead. He starts to question the wisdom of singing a song about sex to the husband he hasn’t had penetrative sex with in… quite some time. 

Pete rubs his thumb across his lower lip and chases it with the wet, pink tip of his tongue. Yes, this was a horrible idea. Patrick is going to pop a boner on stage like a fucking teenager and there’s nothing he can do about it. He should’ve worn tighter underwear. He hopes the tighter jeans will be enough. This is why Pete went dorky, why he belted out Stand By Your Man tunelessly and with great showmanship. Because singing sex songs, on stage, to the man he so desperately wants to have sex with is a Very Bad Idea and Patrick is a Very Stupid Man.

He closes his eyes. Which helps with the immediate issue of watching Pete’s mouth. He thinks of the song as notes and beats instead of lyrics and declarations of extreme horniness, which helps a little more. By the end of the song, he has managed to avoid a raging erection and he considers that more of a victory than the polite smattering of applause that ripples through the bar. 

Then he hears Pete. “That’s my boy!” he bellows, and punctuates it with a piercing, two finger whistle. “That’s _my_ goddamn boy, right there!”

Patrick knows, before he opens his eyes, that Pete is standing on his seat. Every available blood cell in his body routes itself quickly to his face. If he blushes any harder, he will be on _fire._ Pete is no longer shouting actual words, instead he’s just whooping and hollering, stomping his feet and fucking _whistling_ like he wants a goddamn encore. Patrick will murder him if he doesn’t die of embarrassment before he gets the chance.

“Uh,” he mutters into the mic as the crowd shoots amused glances between the two of them. “Thanks.”

And he hurls the microphone into the hands of the compere and sprints from the stage with a weird little half-bow that’s probably completely unnecessary. By the time he gets to the table, Pete has, thankfully, removed his skinny ass from the seat. Before Patrick can open his mouth to berate him — and God knows, he has a _lot_ of things he wants to say — Pete throws his arms around Patrick’s neck and lands a smacking kiss square on his mouth. 

“You are unbelievable,” Pete informs him seriously.

“Says the man who just acted like I was performing at the fucking MTV Awards or something. Actually, scrap that, _no one would do that_ at the MTV Awards. No one.”

“I would,” Pete tells him, palming over Patrick’s cheek, cuffing at the brim of his cap so he can tug at his hair. It’s like the song has unlocked a dammed lifetime of undisplayed affection and Pete is greedy for it, tugging uselessly at Patrick’s shirt, at his hands, skimming his palms over his shoulders, arms, wrists. He rubs his cheek under Patrick’s chin and _purrs._ Patrick scratches behind his ears, momentarily convinced that Pete has transformed into an affectionate cat. “You are so, so wonderful. Have I told you that lately?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Patrick says.

“I’m in love,” Pete corrects him. “I can’t fight this feeling any more.”

“If you’re going to quote REO Speedwagon, so help me God, you can get right back on stage where it’s appropriate to do so.”

“You sang that song for me,” Pete crows into Patrick’s neck. “You sang it for me and it was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Do you know how often you lick your lips when you’re singing? It’s a lot. It’s so, so hot. Seriously.”

“Hey,” Patrick grabs Pete by the chin and tilts his head up gently, “do you want to go and make out in the parking lot?”

“Fuck, I _do,”_ Pete grins happily and skips towards the door, towing Patrick along by the hand. “I’ll drive you to the lake, it’ll be like, super romantic. We’re like a fucking love song, Trick.”

“That was just a _fucking_ song,” Patrick corrects him as they step out into the evening air and the smell of gasoline and take out restaurants. “And I don’t think making out in a car is necessarily the textbook definition of romance.”

Pete pushes him back against the car and slides a knee between Patrick’s thighs. Patrick sees the world in reverse technicolor, an inverted photograph, an overexposed polaroid. He tilts his hips and exposes his throat and lets Pete kiss into the hot, damp hollow of it, lets him tug at the neckline of his cool new dad shirt and lick along his collarbone. He takes it back. This is definitely romance. 

“It’s _our_ fucking song,” Pete breathes over Patrick’s damp skin and raises goosebumps. “We’re like a love song, and a song about loving to fuck.”

Patrick slides his hands under Pete’s shirt and rubs his thumbs along the waist of his jeans. He can’t disagree.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in case you didn't notice, next week will be the last chapter. Hope you enjoy the penultimate look into the lives of these now-happy husbands, and that I've convincingly shown that relationships can be saved if both parties want to save them. Enjoy!

Pete’s not sure this counts as a date.

He’s standing at the mirror in their bathroom, attempting to tie his bow tie with decreasing levels of success. Behind him, Patrick is shuffling into dress pants and muttering something about polishing his shoes.

“Is this a date?” he asks plaintively.

“You’re wearing a bow tie,” Patrick points out absently. “If it’s not a date, you’re presumably taking me to prom.”

“Bet you looked great on prom night,” Pete says wistfully.

Patrick takes over tying Pete’s bow tie. “I wore a powder blue tuxedo and my mom combed my hair for me,” he says, smiling. “I looked like I’d escaped from some kind of facility. Anyway, you’re definitely dressed for a date. That or you’re dressed as the bassist in a middling rock band, on his way to his second Grammy ceremony, with his ridiculously hot girlfriend waiting for him in the limo.”

Pete blinks at his reflection. That is a _lot_ to infer from a bow tie and a black velvet tuxedo jacket.

“That’s a painfully specific example scenario,” Pete says, squinting at himself in an attempt to conjure up this hypothetical rock star. “Why is my rock band only middling? Why am I the bassist? Why am I straight in this other universe? More to the point, do I win the Grammy?”

“No,” Patrick says, squeezing Pete’s hip as he reaches past him for cologne. “But you’re very Zen about it, and your fans love you anyway. Getting back to your original question, yes, I’m pretty sure this counts as a date _and,_ more to the point, that means we’re at number nine.”

All of the air is punched from Pete’s lungs. That can’t possibly be right. He’s no good at math, but surely, _surely_ , they’re nowhere close to number nine. He counts back, frowns, reminds himself that numerical progression is linear and experiences a sensation like the floor dropping away from under him. He opens and closes his mouth like a goldfish. He grips the edge of the vanity until his knuckles ache. Date number nine. This means, by his superior powers of deduction, dear Watson, that once this date is over, he’s down to his last chance. There will be no further opportunities to pass go. He will not collect 200 dollars. Furthermore, there has been no suggestion that reconciliation is on the cards. He doesn’t live in this beautiful house, with his beautiful husband, this is not, as yet, his beautiful life. He makes an asthmatic wheezing noise that somehow sounds like “mm _hmm_ ,” and arranges his face into an expression that he hopes demonstrates he has all of this under control.

It lasts for a pitiful number of seconds before he turns to Patrick and says, “So, about this whole… ten dates _thing.”_

“Yep?” Patrick is rummaging for hair product. “God, is there anything here for thinning, white guy hair? What do I even use at this point? Wool from Harper’s craft chest and a glue stick?”

“Baldness is sexy,” Pete tells him, “or it’s a sign of virility or… something. You look sexy, is what I’m saying. God. Whatever. Anyway, ten dates, huh?”

“Almost nine down,” Patrick murmurs absently, brushing styling wax through his hair and getting it adorably wrong. Pete takes over and combs Patrick’s hair carefully to the side. “Almost one to go.”

Pete nods, more to himself than anyone else. This is because no one else is actually looking at him.  “Yeah, so, I was just thinking — and please, feel free to tell me I’ve got this all wrong — but I was thinking this whole thing has been going pretty well, don’t you think?”

“It’s been... interesting,” Patrick says, carefully neutral, still watching himself comb his hair in the mirror.

“Interesting?” Pete repeats cautiously. “Such an _expansive_ adjective, don’t you think? I could infer a lot from _interesting.”_

“You probably could.”

“Like, good interesting? Bad interesting? Is this going well?”

“I’d say so,” Patrick says vaguely.

“Has anyone ever described you as deliberately obtuse?”

“Nope.”

Pete’s eyes are snagged on Patrick’s mouth, the way he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. He should take a picture. No, that’s his penis talking. There are probably support groups for the kind of men who need to take photographs of their husband’s _mouths_ for posterity and inevitable sessions of self-gratification. He looks away but then gets caught on Patrick’s ass. He’s a pervert, it’s official.

“Are you looking at my ass?” Patrick asks mildly.

“I’m trying not to, really I am, but it’s a very distracting ass,” Pete says and slides behind Patrick at the vanity, his hands on Patrick’s hips, his mouth on Patrick’s neck, his dick on Patrick’s ass. “I mean, as far as asses go, it’s in a very elite class. I should write your mom a thank you note for gifting the world with such a glorious ass.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“Hmm,” Pete sighs and hooks his chin on Patrick’s shoulder. “You’re my very favorite husband, you know that, right?”

Patrick gives him this fond-eyed tabby cat look and Pete feels his marrow soften, his blood churning hot under his skin as Patrick grins lopsided and sexy and says, “Your favorite? From your extensive roster of interchangeable husbands?”

If Pete doesn’t kiss that mouth in the next ten seconds, his lungs might give out. He had a plan, a well thought out playbook of impeccable behavior for the evening but right now his brain is stalling, buffering on the shape of Patrick’s lips. He grabs him by the hips once more, turns him quickly and steps in, backs Patrick up against the vanity as Patrick reaches up and grabs two handfuls of Pete’s hair. Patrick’s mouth is pink and lovely, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright and hungry. Pete should lock the bathroom door.

“Do you remember the last time we fucked in the bathroom?” Patrick murmurs, like he’s afraid someone will hear him. Yes. Their _children_. Pete really ought to lock the door. “I think you were blond at the time, right? When you bent me over the vanity and…”

This is not fair. This is an act of war declared on Pete’s poor, beleaguered penis. He fists a hand in Patrick’s hair and feels the wax under his fingers. He’s being teased, he’s not an idiot, he understands the implication but not the end game. Is this a promise?

“And?” he prompts.

“It’s weird we never bleached at the same time,” Patrick says lightly. Pete will drown himself in peroxide right now if Patrick promises to carry on gently grinding their hips together. “Blonde on blonde. Like Bob Dylan.”

“God,” Pete whispers, and his mouth tingles, the magnetic pull of Patrick’s kiss drawing him closer as he leans in and –

“Next time, dress your own baby,” Caitlyn declares from their bedroom door.

They jump apart wearing twin looks of guilt and conspiracy. Patrick bites his lip and grins around it and looks so hopelessly charming that Pete’s heart no longer has enough room to contain blood and plasma and all of his _feelings_.

“Later,” Patrick says softly, and ghosts his hand over Pete’s crotch on his way into the bedroom. “What did she do? Oh my _God,_ who picked that headband? She looks like an Easter egg!”

Pete leans against the vanity and closes his eyes and reminds himself that it would be extremely inappropriate to leave the bathroom with a visibly obvious erection. He’s pretty sure that was a promise.

***

Nothing could have prepared Pete for this moment. There has been no well-timed article in the Tribune that covers the subject and he didn’t imagine for a second that he might need to go looking for one. He sweats nervously and pulls at his collar and wishes he wore a shirt that places marginally less pressure on his windpipe. His pulse is trapped under his bow tie and his head feels like it might explode if he takes anything more than shallow, panting breaths through his nose. He is nothing more than a heart attack contained in ribs and skin.

He’s not prepared. It’s not possible to be prepared for _this_.

“Okay,” he says. “I know absolutely nothing about what’s going to happen. I can’t promise you everything is going to be fine, but I _can_ promise you that I’ll be here for you the whole time, okay?”

A pair of soft, warm hands squeeze his. They still his heartbeat, just a little. They calm his noxious, churning blood and his crippling sense of sad-eyed inadequacy. They anchor him in the room, crouched on the carpet with the knees of his pants gathering dust. This is not the way it should be. Pete is supposed to be the one offering support here. Something has gone awry.

“No,” he says quickly. “No, this is… I’m supposed to calm _you_ , not the other way around, it’s—”

“Dad,” Noah says earnestly. “Will you calm down? It’s just a recital, it’ll be _fine.”_

“You can’t know that,” Pete accuses his leotard-wearing son. Noah points his toe and slowly brings his left leg up and over Pete’s head. That is oddly impressive. “Okay, you can probably know that a little bit, but…”

“I’ll be fine,” Noah assures him, pressing his hairbrush and hair ties into Pete’s hand. “Could you do my hair?”

Pete takes the brush and pulls it though the tangled mess of curls with diligence and care. The fortunate thing about hair care, is that it doesn’t require the hairdresser to face the dressee. The brush whispers through his curls with a rhythmic chshh-chshh-chshh and the hairspray and bobby pins and smoothing serums are lined up precisely on the table to their left and the room is a humming lung of low-voiced chatter. Pete feels calmer than he has in weeks. 

Is this what it feels like to be a normal dad? To have this comfortable silence between them, father and son, as his hands work the dark curls that he handed over in his own genetic coding that runs through Noah’s veins? To glance at this smooth-cheeked, large-toothed, wide-smiled child in the mirror before them and see his own amber eyes grinning back at him? There is a loosely formed explosive device in Pete’s chest; no longer a heart, but an IED. One slip could kill him. Chshh-chshh-chshh goes the brush.

“So,” he says quietly, securing Noah’s hair back with a hair tie. “Braids?”

“You’re funny,” Noah tells him, around big white teeth. The two in the front are permanent now, too large for his mouth in a way Pete can’t promise him he’ll grow into. 

“I can do braids,” Pete defends himself hotly. “Grandma taught me when Caitlyn was a baby.”

“They take forever.”

“We have a long time.”

“We have, like, two minutes,” Noah shrugs. The ballet coach has a clipboard, she looks stressed enough to power a whole city block with her pre-show anxiety. Pete finds it relatable on a number of levels, but his anxiety all comes from this collection of his own DNA, mixed with a stranger’s and gestated for just the right amount of time. Exchanged for a check funded by Pete’s bonus and Patrick’s inheritance and a loan the equivalent of a small family SUV. How strange that their family is so wonderful, so extraordinary in its ordinariness. How strange that all Pete wants to do is braid Noah’s hair. “Maybe at the weekend?”

Sometimes, Pete worries that his husband and children can read his mind. But that’s okay, because right now, in the mirror, he can read Noah’s, too. He can see the look that says _it’s okay, dad._ The look that says, _I know you’re worried but I still think you’re awesome._ Chshh-chshh-chshh. There’s something damp on Pete’s cheek, his eyes filmed and hot. He blinks a few times and takes a deep breath and mutters, gruffly, “I guess you’ll have to make do with a bun.”

“I like the bun,” Noah says, as Pete secures the hair tie. He turns and hugs Pete with unashamed ferocity. He wraps his skinny little boy arms around Pete’s middle and buries his round-cheeked face in Pete’s dress shirt and he mutters into Pete’s chest. “I love you, dad. Thank you.”

It’s not clear if he means the bun or something else. Pete doesn’t ask. Ms Clipboard begins calling names and Noah’s is one of the first ones on her list. Noah pushes him — gently, though — urging him back towards the door. 

“I’ll be fine,” he says, with two thumbs up and a crooked grin. Pete slips the sweatband over Noah’s hairline and allows himself to be ushered away. “Go! You’re sort of embarrassing me.” 

He doesn’t look as though he means it. 

“Good luck, I’ll be watching,” Pete says and Noah spins away like he’s flying.

Pete steps into the quiet hallway of the Northdale Community Center and takes a moment to lean against the cool brick wall. His pulse is quick and his cheeks feel hot, his eyes gritty and burning, the lump in his throat entirely impenetrable. Pete’s nerves are on fire. It hurts so much — too much — to think of every recital he’s missed, every time those eyes have scanned the crowd and found him absent. It is almost unbearable. Almost unthinkable. Is there a difference between not-loving and not-noticing? It’s hard to untangle the two when the outcome is just the same. 

Still, he’s here tonight. He pushes away from the wall and hurries to the auditorium. Patrick is seated front row center, Avery on his lap and Caitlyn and Harper either side. An empty chair is guarded by a jacket. Pete follows Patrick’s gaze, meets it and watches him melt into a smile. Open. Unguarded. Pete should watch the performance from the back of the room and spare them all his emotional meltdown but that seems like it might not be conducive to his quest to prove quite how luckily he has turned this around.

He takes his seat and takes Avery. The bow on her head really _does_ make her look like an easter egg. But she has Patrick’s smile and Patrick’s eyes and Patrick’s throaty giggle when he tickles under her chin. Still the loveliest egg with legs, he decides. 

“Is he okay?” Patrick whispers, squeezing Pete’s hand as the hall lights begin to dim. 

“Yeah,” Pete says, as the curtain begins to rise and the stage is filled with ballet shoes and Tchaikovsky. “He’s absolutely fine.”

***

They have eaten hamburgers at the kind of burger joint where their formalwear stood out against the stained vinyl booths. They have celebrated with ice cream sundaes that the kids got on clothes and hands and faces and spotted across Pete’s white dress shirt. Patrick shared a vanilla shake with him with two straws and kissed him in exchange for the cherry at the bottom of the glass and Pete fancied it was the most wonderful time to be married to Patrick, to share that moment with their children.  Pete is as weightless as air, stretched out on his back on Patrick’s — their? — bed with Patrick’s sticky-sweet mouth kissing the spot on his throat that Patrick knows loves to be kissed. Pete’s dick is half-hard and interested, a neat swell in his dress pants, Patrick’s pale hand on his thigh and edging closer. 

The house is silent, the children asleep, and Patrick’s fingers creep higher. 

“We don’t have to,” Pete murmurs, then tips up Patrick’s chin and bites his pale and lovely throat, the creamy soft space before the bristle of his beard takes over. Not too hard, he has no desire to leave a mark. Well, he has a lot of desire, but knows Patrick won’t like it, so he doesn’t do it. How simple: To know what action will evoke the best response and do it, because it will make Patrick happy. 

“I know,” Patrick says, then breaks on a whine as Pete slides a hand under his shirt and thumbs over the puffy sensitivity of his left nipple. There is hair, coarse under Pete’s fingertips, Patrick’s erection hard and obvious against his thigh. “God, I _want_ to, though.”

Pete stops. Pete pulls back and removes his hand from under Patrick’s shirt and watches Patrick warily. Pete does not respond to the way Patrick arches up and whines throatily. Pete is being considerate. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, his mouth wet with the thought of Patrick’s cock. 

Patrick immediately makes it very hard to be considerate by maintaining eye contact as he slowly, slowly, _slowly_ thumbs open the button of his pants and slides down his zipper. Pete attempts to hold Patrick’s eyes but he is only a man and Patrick arches his back and raises his hips and _moans_ as he slides his hand down between his legs. Pete looks down and, promptly, just about fucking _dies._ The persistent swell of Patrick’s erection is obvious through his cotton shorts. There is a faint patch of damp that Pete wants to lick, to taste him bitter and musk. There has never been a dick that Pete has felt a stronger urge to suck, to lick. This is an act of war. 

“I’m pretty sure,” Patrick says, his voice wrecked. “I mean, I can just touch myself, if you’d prefer?”

Pete is struck by the lightning bolt of Patrick jerking off in front of him, a voltage delivered to the base of his spine, his toes curling and his mouth round with shock. Would he come on Pete’s dress pants? White evidence left smudged against Pete’s thigh? Patrick grasps his dick through his shorts, shapes it like clay as he cants his hips. Pete experiences a sudden thought — a sense of clarity, a _feeling_ — that everything is going to be okay. He takes Patrick by the wrist, pulls his hand away. 

“I’d rather help,” he offers, his own smile so wide it hurts the edge of his mouth, his own dick so hard he fears he may pass out. 

Patrick smiles and kicks off his pants. Patrick climbs off the bed and pads across the hardwood and leaves Pete gaping after him. Patrick pauses at their bathroom door in just his dress shirt and boxers, like Tom Cruise in Risky Business and looks back, his eyebrows raised. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” he says deliberately, so pink and rose and lovely. “You can join me, if you want.”

***

Patrick stands in front of the shower and reminds himself not to panic. Unfortunately, he is already panicking, so the self-aware advice is not particularly helpful. The spray is flecking his shirt, his skin, bright spatters against the lenses of his glasses as he looks in the mirror and watches Pete slip into the bathroom behind him. He’s taken off his jacket but he’s still wearing his shirt, the top button popped, the bow tie loose around his throat. All of that endless snow white linen against his dark skin, hair, eyes. Patrick closes his eyes and swallows with audible nervous tension.

“Hey,” Pete’s hands find his hips, his mouth against Patrick’s ear, his breath a hot, damp flood against Patrick’s skin, “come on, it’s okay.” Gently, Pete tugs at the button at Patrick’s throat. He pauses. “Can I?”

Eyes still closed, Patrick nods. He wants this, he _does._ He wants Pete with a ferocious, tearing hunger that coils through his guts. He wants him with the aching good way his pulse pools in his cock, flushing, filling, the tip already wet, already so sensitive it hurts. He grips the edge of the vanity and tips his head back, feels Pete’s strong fingers against his Adam’s apple as Pete frees the button.

“Open your eyes,” Pete whispers, and Patrick does. He watches Pete’s hands on his shirt in the mirror, the way he works each button and exposes more of Patrick’s throat, chest, pale, round stomach and red-gold hair. Patrick takes off his glasses. “Fuck, babe. You’re so fucking sexy.”

This is not a fact held to be self-evident. Patrick has never thought of himself as sexy, never imagined himself to be the source of anyone’s sexual desire. Less so now, with his faint wrinkles and white hair creeping in at his temples and his stomach as soft as Pete’s mouth on his throat. The evidence that _Pete_ believes that Patrick is sexy is hard in the small of Patrick’s back, the pandemic heat and swell of Pete’s erection pressing through his shorts and Patrick’s and rubbing languorously against Patrick’s tailbone. It would be much easier to believe. It would be much _nicer._

“Can I take it off?” Pete asks, his hands on Patrick’s biceps, his eyes over Patrick’s shoulder endless amber, glittering and golden.

“Yeah,” Patrick says bravely.

Then he turns in Pete’s arms because he _can_ be undressed in front of Pete, just not in front of the mirror, too. It’s a battle for another day: Patrick’s self-esteem against Pete’s adoration. It’s a war. He hopes one day Pete will win. Pete slips the shirt down over Patrick’s shoulders, leaves him exposed like a nerve, his nipples stiff, his dick more so. Pete wraps his hand around it through cotton, still burning, and Patrick hisses, his knees buckling, his hands gripping wildly at the vanity behind him. This is beyond rational thought. 

“Please,” he whispers. He doesn’t know what he needs, he only knows that he needs it so intensely that he can’t breathe without it. He brings his dick further into Pete’s cupped palm, feels his fingertips like tattoos against his skin, and brings his mouth to Pete’s ear. “Please.”

“I’m right here,” Pete promises him, his hands at Patrick’s waistband. “I’ve got you.” The shorts slip down, over Patrick’s thighs, knees, ankles, pooling on the tile at his feet in a body-warm puddle of cotton as his dick bounces free, curved up and out like a Pete-seeking missile between them. Patrick is so naked, so vulnerable and exposed, he closes his eyes once more and tilts his head, lets Pete bruise his mouth on Patrick’s collar bone. 

Pete’s clothes come off quickly. He works his buttons, zippers, briefs one-handed and blind, his mouth on Patrick’s skin, his tongue a heady chorus over Patrick’s throat, his chest, his peaked and puffy nipples. Patrick braces back against the vanity and tries to stop his knees from giving out, his greedy hands sliding over Pete’s shaved skin, tracing his tattoos, tugging at the band holding back his hair. Now that Pete is naked and hard and swollen in his hand, Patrick knows what he wants. He wants absolution, he wants to be cleansed of the way it felt to feel dirty under Pete’s touch. He wants an end like a definition. 

They tumble into the shower and under the spray. Patrick’s hand is still filled with Pete’s dick, his mouth is filled with Pete’s tongue, and his ears are filled with his own heartbeat, his cock twitching in time like waves. Pete pulls back gasping and extracts himself with tender caution from Patrick’s grip. 

“I’m going to make you feel so good,” he promises, his eyes melting and happy and relieved. He reaches for the shower gel, uncaps it with a click and fills his palm, then turns Patrick to face the wall. “Relax.”

Patrick breathes against the tiles and feels the warm shower spray tickle his back. Pete starts at his shoulders, rubs the lather over his skin, reaches around to tweak Patrick’s nipples through the foam, lets it drip down over his crotch. He pauses, his hands on Patrick’s ass. Patrick holds steady and thinks: This is it, this is the moment Pete fucks him. Pete with a dick so hard Patrick can taste it at the back of his throat, Patrick’s hole fluttering, quivering, bright with need. He wants this, but he’s not sure he wants it like this, quick and rough in the shower with body wash instead of lube and his face, stomach, thighs pressed to the cold of the tiles. It’s hard to know how to say no, when the default is always compliance. Not yes, but never no. He cants his hips back, though, rounds his ass and waits for Pete’s fingers. 

Instead, Pete gives him his tongue.

Not all at once, but slowly. Pete slides his mouth along the length of Patrick’s spine, mouthing at the nape of his neck, nipping slowly down the valley of it as his fingers slide, slippery with shower gel, along the crack of Patrick’s ass. Patrick spreads his arms and his thighs, feels the frigid hardness of the marble against his nipples and his full to bursting cock. He gasps, his breath puffing hot from his mouth, cooling and then beading against his lips. When was the last time Pete did this? Patrick’s forgotten all about it, the anticipation, the good kind of crawl in his gut and the way he becomes so aware of himself, of this part of his body he gives so little thought. He wants to memorize Pete’s mouth on him, he wants impact and teeth and purple bruises in the morning but Pete is so soft, gentle, treating Patrick like he’s something holy or fragile, something that might shatter if he pushes too hard. Patrick is two hundred pounds of aching, throbbing _want_. He can take it. 

Pete is on his knees now, humming softly to himself as he works a fingertip around Patrick’s rim, his mouth biting electric shocks into the fleshed softness of Patrick’s ass cheeks. Each touch of his lips, teeth, tongue finds a new route, a different way to spike from his mouth to Patrick’s dick, to rocket back and through his spine and up, up, up crashing through the top of his skull. Pete slides that finger inside of him, soapy and slick, and presses tight to his prostate, milking gently with the rock of his fingertip. Patrick chokes, slides his knee up against the wall and opens himself and begs with the arch of his back for Pete to keep going. Pete opens him up to the shower spray, the prickle of it unbearable, then leans in and kisses him, just once, on the golden hair and tight pink of his hole. 

Patrick slumps, drools against the tiles and doesn’t feel embarrassed. 

“More,” he whispers, his voice wrecked, “God, Pete, come on.”

He can feel Pete’s smile against him, his mouth stretched against Patrick’s ass, his teeth cool and slick against his hole. He feels examined, completely on display. Vulnerable in a deeply enjoyable way. He reaches down and gets a soapy hand around his soapy dick, his thumb against his pubic bone and his fingers against the tile, and grips, feels it like an anchor as Pete slowly, deliberately, pulls his tongue from Patrick’s perineum to his tailbone, filthy wet and heated. 

Pete’s tongue is quickclever and considered. He brings the tip to Patrick’s rim and then softens, works it in slow, lazy laps that mop Patrick up like he’s melting, like popsicles sticky on Pete’s lips, chin, dripping down over his throat to pool in his collar bones. Patrick wants to cry out but bites his lip instead, sinks his teeth down until he’s sure it’ll burst, fleshy and red, like strawberries against his tongue. There is no way to contain this kind of sensation. Patrick relaxes into muscle memory, lets his hips roll with Pete’s rhythm — _their_ rhythm — and surrenders all higher cortical functioning  to Pete’s mouth. Pete’s lips. Pete’s greedy, digging _tongue._

It starts low in Patrick’s gut. A curling, coiling heat like twisted notebook spirals pulling tighter in his groin. Patrick grips his dick harder, rubs his thumb over the tip until he shudders, tips himself back onto Pete’s mouth, Pete’s hands cutting bruises into his hips. He can feel Pete’s nose against his coccyx. Somehow, that makes him harder, a bright golden thread from his spine to the pulsing, chambered heart rawness of the crown of his cock. He leaks under his own thumb, slipperier, more sensitive. He gasps around his swollen lip. He’s going to come. 

“You want it like this?” Pete asks, muffled by Patrick’s ass cheeks. He offers a friendly rub to Patrick’s sensitive balls, thumbing over them with great affection. Patrick wheezes something insensible. “Want me to make you come?”

“No,” Patrick gasps, while his dick screams _yes_. His dick is an idiot. His dick has no sense of the power of delayed gratification. “But I need you to take definitive action and move because my dick isn’t getting the message.”

Pete laughs against Patrick’s ass then pulls away and Patrick is empty. Only his prostate throbs inside of him. He leans his wet forehead against the tiles and counts the stars he can see behind his eyelids. Pete stands behind him, his hard cock pushed along the ditch of Patrick’s ass, his arms warm and solid around Patrick’s waist, nips at Patrick’s earlobe and whispers, “You want to fuck me?”

Patrick tips his head and considers as Pete plunders his throat like it’s made of something precious. Does he want to fuck Pete, to feel him hot and tight around his cock? To admit that to penetrate is the reward for good behaviour and to be penetrated is a penance? Patrick _likes_ getting fucked, is the thing, and it hasn’t been good in so long that he aches with the need for it. He fists a hand in Pete’s hair and pulls their mouths together over his shoulder, keeps it easy with the tongue as Pete licks into his mouth, past his teeth. 

“I want you to fuck me how you used to, I want you to make it _so good.”_

Behind him, Pete tenses like a cramp, his toes curling against the tile at their feet, his breath a hot wet rush over Patrick’s mouth. He circles Patrick’s needy dick with his big, rough palm and squeezes, pulls, strokes and whispers against Patrick’s lips, “Fuck. Yes, _sir.”_

They take a while to make it to the bed. They try, but Patrick falls to his knees beside the vanity and takes the persistent swell of Pete’s shower-wet erection into his mouth. He tastes him, warm water and clean skin and bitter-sticky pearls that crown the leaking head, and thinks that there is no taste more exquisite. He feels Pete slide against his mouth in familiar undulations, feels him hot and smooth against his tongue, his lips, the tender ridged roof of his mouth. He looks up and into Pete’s eyes and rubs his own dick with feverish jerks of his wrist until Pete pushes him back. “Not yet,” Pete reminds him, hauling him up and herding him forward. “Remember?”

Pete immediately forgets and folds to his own knees halfway across the bedroom floor. He licks Patrick’s balls through his pubic hair, sucks them, takes Patrick’s dick deep into his throat until Patrick gives in and cries out. He collapses like he’s structurally unsound, like Pete’s touch is a controlled explosion at his foundations, the rug burning his skin as he writhes on his back. They rock in endless motion together, Pete’s greedy mouth around Patrick’s cock until someone has the strength to move away, to stagger to their feet and propel them the final few feet across the rug and onto their bed. _Their_ bed. They fall back together, Patrick on his back and with his legs spread, Pete cradled in his hips.

_The world is a beautiful place,_ Patrick thinks, half delirious. It’s so full of wonderful sensation, of hands on his skin and lips on his neck and teeth biting into his collar bone, shoulder, throat. He rubs up into Pete, feels the persistent grind of their cocks caught between them. It would be possible to come from this. Just this, rocking up and pushing down and kissing, kissing, kissing. 

Something occurs at Patrick’s hole. Ah, Pete’s fingers, slippery cool with lube as he rubs in maddening circles over Patrick’s rim. Patrick spreads his legs and arches his hips and wants this more than he’s wanted anything in such a long time. All life, all recorded time, has ceased to exist beyond the perimeter of this room, this bed, Pete’s hand rocking back and forth and driving his wonderful fingers deep and lovely into Patrick. They kiss, Patrick’s hands on Pete’s face and his thigh on Pete’s hip, they bite at one another’s smiles and Patrick feels a contentment so complete it rearranges him. 

“I’m ready,” he tells Pete breathlessly, and God, he’s been ready all night, all week. If he doesn’t feel Pete’s dick inside of him soon, he might die. “Come on, I’m ready.”

Pete pulls out his fingers and lines up his cock. The lubed tip of it circles gently, Pete’s frown intense, Patrick’s nails sinking ten tiny slices into Pete’s shoulders as he grips tight and just fucking _hangs on._ _I want this_ , he wants his mouth to say but it can’t, because the air in the room is like syrup and too sticky to breathe, _I want this and I want you and you have to, you_ have _to…_

“You have to,” Patrick gasps to Pete’s golden eyes.

“I will,” Pete promises him. 

The first inch slips into Patrick’s body, thick and warm and solid. “Yes,” he gasps, head thrown back, mouth on his throat. “Fuck, yes.”

When Pete pushes inside of him, Patrick gives up on thinking. His eyes roll back and his hips roll up and his spine goes stiff like iron and then collapses like a noodle and he makes a sound like coming apart and being pulled together all at once. Pete opens his mouth and Patrick swears to _God_ , if Pete asks if he’s okay, Patrick’s going to fucking kill him. So he grabs Pete by the hair and hauls him down, he smashes their mouths together, he replaces Pete’s words with his tongue and he licks the into Pete’s mouth like he can lick out the stupid. Every part of Patrick feels like it’s lighting up as Pete slides inside of him, an electricity grid or those pictures of cities astronauts take from space, each nerve ending fires and glows until Pete is seated completely inside of him, his hips flush to the curve of Patrick’s ass.

“I love you,” Pete whispers against Patrick’s mouth and Patrick feels it sink through skin and nerve and tissue and down into the marrow of him. It settles there, under the churning heat of his blood and lymph as slowly, and with endless precision, Pete’s hips begin to move. 

And God, but Patrick has forgotten what a good fuck Pete can be. He feels it hot on the back of his tongue as Pete circles his hips, as he drives back and forth with the precision of a metronome. Patrick wraps his thighs around Pete’s narrow hips. He takes his own painfully rigid dick into his hand and strokes, grips, tugs in time. It feels like being torn apart by blissful feeling, like Pete’s cock can deconstruct him, resurrect him, reunite each of the parts that have been broken and make them new and whole and — 

Pete’s tip finds Patrick’s prostate, touches that golden gland and Patrick’s thoughts detonate. Like stardust. Like comets colliding. Patrick stills and gasps and grips his cock and Pete’s hair and holds on tight. 

That pain-pleasure tightens his groin once again. It builds like an inevitability, with heat and pressure and irresistible sensation. Patrick mouths sloppily at Pete’s neck, bites into the cord of muscle and sinew until Pete gasps. “Pete,” he whisper-screams, because he has the presence of mind to control his volume but very little else, “Pete, I — I’m gonna—”

“Fuck,” Pete breathes, “Fuck, Patrick.”

It hits.

It roars through him like an explosion, like blistering fire and searing wind and shattering glass and endless ringing in his ears. Patrick braces, holds on, falls into it and allows it to consume him. He comes long and hard and arcing white and hot over Pete’s stomach and chest, over his hand, dripping down onto his belly and groin. Tingling, blissed out and throbbing, Patrick collapses back into the sheets and meets Pete’s wide eyes with his own. 

“God,” Pete whispers, and groans deep in his throat. He takes Patrick by the wrists, pins his hands over his head and fucks him sound and deep and _hard_ into the mattress. He lasts a handful of strokes, a few beats to draw out the final shockwaves rippling through Patrick’s nervous system and then he locks up, tenses, bites his lip and closes his eyes and comes, his dick hard and throbbing in Patrick’s ass.

They come down together. Less like flying, more like floating. Somewhere warm, somewhere safe. Pete’s dick softens inside of him, his mouth biting lazy kisses across Patrick’s sweaty shoulders, his throat, lingering against his lips. Patrick kisses back without coordination, his tongue too eager, his lips slightly numb. His spent cock twitches in his hand. He is sticky with sweat and lube and cooling come that pools along the crease of his ass. It doesn’t matter. Very little matters right now with Pete on top and inside of him, with his breathing a messy pulse against Patrick’s ear, with his mouth shaky on Patrick’s cheek. They could stay like this, sustaining one another in an endless loop of pressure and purpose, and Patrick wouldn’t mind at all. 

“I love you,” Pete says. His slick, soft cock slips out of Patrick, rests against the curve of Patrick’s ass. Patrick feels entirely hollow, like his orgasm has scraped him out into a wet cavern. 

Patrick smiles, at the ceiling. His hips cannot stop squirming, like perpetual motion, carried on by the ecstatic sensation of his orgasm. It’s like ripples on a lake — smaller, the further they get from the point of impact, but still there, still there. He is blissed-out, fucked beyond sensibility and close to passing out. He studies Pete with a lazy curiosity, and he feels the last of the unkindness slip away, dissolving like sugar candy on his tongue. Pete grins in the shadows, his teeth bright and sharp in the corners. 

“You’ll do for me,” Patrick says fondly, scrubbing his fingers through Pete’s hair, through the bristle of his undercut, the scruffy fuzz of his beard with the grey streaking through it. “Love you so much.” He does. He loves this man with every unconditional beat of his heart. He loves this man who went missing but came home; the prodigal husband, the intrepid, roaming wanderer. His thighs squeeze at Pete’s hips and he wishes his lower back didn’t ache quite so much. 

“You want me to move?” Pete asks, thumbing over Patrick’s lips. Patrick _hates_ his refractory period. 

“Never,” he says honestly, then thinks, then adds, “Only, like, maybe a little? My hip does _not_ like holding this position.”

Pete laughs and pulls away gently, then he rummages for baby wipes and shares them like spoils. Patrick wipes come from his chest and his stomach, from the riot of curls at his groin and further back. 

“I’m so tired,” Pete murmurs. “You mind if I crash in the guest room?”

That sentence triggers something violent in Patrick’s chest. It sets his heart lurching out of time and makes his lungs stutter and cramp and he sinks his fingernails into Pete’s wrist and holds him still and says, urgently, “Don’t leave. Not tonight, not ever. Move back home. Stay with me.”

Pete looks at him cautiously, reaches out then hesitates, afraid to touch. He mutters, “We don’t need to make any decisions right now, we can talk in the morning. I know it’s a lot…”

“Don’t you want to move back home?” Patrick asks pathetically, his heart staccato against his ribs, the streetlights outside slanting through the blinds and casting Pete’s wide, flat mouth in gold and his eyes in darkness. Patrick sees him lift a shoulder, laid on his side with his tattoos wet with sweat and his dick soft against his thigh. There is no suitable promulgation for how much he wants Pete to come home — it’s a twist in his gut, a knot in his throat, a gusty, heavy sea settling somewhere around his ribs and making it difficult to breathe. It doesn’t need to be twin beds and suitcases anymore. He touches Pete’s chest with a trembling hand. 

“Stay,” he says softly. “You’ve found me again, now just — stay.”

In the dark, in their bed, in the wet patch of come and lube, Pete clasps Patrick gently to his chest. The smell is like homecoming, the taste of the skin under Patrick’s mouth salty and satiating. He feels anchored. He feels cocooned and safe. 

“No tenth date?” Pete asks.

“No tenth date.”

“I feel like we’ve wasted a lot of time,” Pete says quietly into Patrick’s thinning hair, his hands on Patrick’s chubby back, ass, hips. How nice, that Pete really does seem to like the way he looks. 

“Really?” Patrick raises his eyebrows. _“We’ve_ wasted a lot of time? _We?”_

“Okay, mostly me. I’ve wasted a lot of our time, and the kids’ time, and the kids’ _lives_. Jesus Christ, I feel like I hardly know Harper and Avery sometimes.”

“You know them,” Patrick promises him. “You’re their dad. You’re just… familiarizing yourself with the details. The specifics. That’s all.”

“Hey,” Pete says, nudging Patrick gently with his knee. “Hey, listen. That? _That_ — was like, fucking _superb_ sex. You, Patrick Martin Stump-Wentz, are one of hell of a lay.”

“I’m amazing,” Patrick says drily. 

“You _are,”_ Pete agrees happily, nosing through Patrick’s hair. “Oh! Hey, speaking of, I have something really cool to show you.”

“Speaking of _what?_ Wait, is it your penis?” Patrick asks suspiciously. “Because, honestly? I’m not 22 anymore and I think, if you try and put that thing in me again, I might have to divorce you after all.”

“I have a gorgeous penis,” Pete growls sexily into Patrick’s throat. Which is basically pointless because Patrick’s dick emptied itself five minutes ago and Pete is spectacularly stupid to imagine he can use sex to coax him into anything right now. Sleep. Sleep would be a good bribe. Patrick yawns and closes his eyes until Pete wriggles away and starts scrambling around for his pants on the bedroom floor. Patrick watches him, puzzled, propped on an elbow. “Are you… going somewhere?”

“Aha!” Pete says, which is a terrible answer, and holds his wallet aloft like a soccer trophy. 

“You wanted to show me your wallet?” Patrick asks dubiously, as Pete slips back into the bed and shoves it into Patrick’s hand. “It’s — a very nice wallet? Is that Italian leather? Wait, _how much_ did this cost?”

“Not important, look in the billfold.”

“Are you attempting to pay me for sexual services? Because, seriously, I’m not sure—”

“Just — would you look? Instead of ruining the surprise?”

Patrick thumbs through the crumpled bills and receipts and finds a neatly folded slip of paper. He smooths it out, squints, and attempts to read it without his glasses. In the dark. He gets to the end and then reads it over once again. He is either insane or… 

“Pete, is this a court notice?”

“It is,” Pete grins. 

“Is this…” Patrick pauses and attempts to swallow around the meteor-sized rock lodged in his windpipe. “Are you _changing your name?”_

“Peter Lewis Kingston Stump-Wentz,” Pete says softly, his eyes liquid caramel as he touches Patrick’s suddenly damp cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I mean, if you’ll have me?”

“You don’t have to do this,” Patrick whispers. 

“I want to,” Pete counters.

Patrick smiles shakily and looks at the notice once again. There are a lot of feelings in his chest. Too many, possibly, for his heart to cope with. “Good,” he says gruffly. “I — Good.”

“I will never leave you again,” Pete murmurs into Patrick’s hair and, before Patrick can reply, the baby monitor crackles to life and Avery wails from her bedroom. “It’s okay,” Pete says, pushing Patrick down into the bed and scrambling around for pajama pants. “I’ll deal with her, you get some sleep. I promise I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Patrick falls asleep watching the baby monitor and listening to Pete singing out of tune lullabies. He thinks they might be absolutely fine.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I generally write half of each chapter from each husband’s point of view, but since the story started with Patrick, it seemed fitting to end it that way. Just trust me when I tell you that Pete is just as dumb for his boy as his boy is for him :) 
> 
> Enjoy!

The world is not a fairy tale. 

There is no handsome prince, no wicked stepmother, no dark and dreadful ogre in a castle on a dreary European mountainside. Life is rarely so straightforward, so devoid of nuance. Sometimes, the prince is a little like the wicked stepmother. Sometimes an ogre would rather be a princess, but Pixar already cashed in on that one. There are shades of grey and a drifting, liminal space where good can coexist with wicked and people are flawed but, ultimately, wonderful and caring and so much bigger than the confines of happily ever after.

Once upon a time, Patrick falls back in love with his handsome prince. His handsome prince is not perfect; he never circles dates on the calendar, he leaves sweaty gym socks on the bathroom floor, he forgets to vacuum between the back seats of the minivan. There are crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes even when he’s not smiling, silver threads through his beard and the coarse hair at his temples. He is less chiselled jaw and ridiculous biceps and more frayed with love at the edges, like a well-worn comfort blanket. But if Pete is the handsome prince, then Patrick is the princess in the tower and he’s pretty sure Rapunzel wasn’t thinning on top and thickening in the middle, so he doesn’t make smart ass comments about it. 

Once upon a time, the Samsonite moves back into their closet, unhaunted by a three pack of Trojans in the travel pocket. There’s no slithery sense of dread in Patrick’s guts when he sees it next to their winter boots on the closet floor, no churning fear like he’s swallowed a throatful of snakes. Fairytales always lent too much weight to inanimate items — enchanted spinning wheels and glass slippers and magic mirrors — sometimes, a bag is just a bag. Patrick likes it that way. 

Once upon a time, Patrick wakes up next to his husband every morning. Aside from the mornings when they’ve been joined by a space invader — or two, or thee —  a jumble of arms and legs wedged between them, and sweaty child hands in his face, and their breath in his nose. There is no better feeling than the warmth that seeps through Patrick when he’s watching Pete in his Bulls shirt and shorts, making cereal and loading the dishwasher and attempting to jam Harper’s feet into matching shoes. 

Once upon a time, Patrick thinks that this is what everyone means when they talk about fairy tale romance. 

Once upon a time, Patrick wakes to a mouth on his dick. Which is fucking fantastic, actually. There are, he thinks sluggishly, definitely worse ways to wake up. He gets as far as, “Mmphrph,” then the mouth does something exceptionally clever, some neat little twist of tooth and tongue and he makes the decision to stop thinking at all. Thinking is entirely overrated when there is so much to feel. 

The mouth is curious and gentle, blessed with a soft tongue and the grazing heat of teeth. There is liquid sensation and sweet velvet suction, a thumb against his hole in friendly inquiry, a groan so thick it chokes him at the back of his throat. Patrick hasn’t yet opened his eyes, he can’t; if there’s a risk that this is a dream then he’d like to see it through to the good part.

He comes fast enough to be embarrassing, his hand in the hair above the mouth on his dick, the other cramped in the sheets at his side. He comes quietly, still half asleep, mumbling nonsense and squirmy little groans to the bedroom ceiling. The giver of the blowjob licks him clean with popsicle strokes of an urgent tongue and then pops up from under the sheets, sweaty and red, and with come in his beard. His amber eyes are very bright, his smile more so. 

“Good morning,” Pete says, and kisses Patrick once on the center of the mouth, no doubt transferring the evidence of Patrick’s early morning orgasm from one beard to the other. 

“Oh good, it’s you,” Patrick mumbles, still not entirely awake, still uncoordinated, still sloppy with sex and satisfaction. He is tingling pleasantly, aware of himself in interesting ways under Pete’s touch, a liquid throb, his pulse the only thing holding him together. 

“Uh, who were you expecting?”Pete asks. “Chris Hemsworth?”

“Mm,” Patrick says, “that’d be nice.” And before Pete can object, he gets a hand around Pete’s dick and squeezes slowly, feels him vein and velvet in his palm, his thumb grazing over the wet and nervy tip. 

“Oh,” Pete gasps, eyes wide, like he’s still surprised by Patrick touching him. His hips move lazily, weight on his elbows, the lean length of him draped over Patrick’s body like skin. 

They kiss without urgency, Patrick’s wrist moving without any particular speed or purpose. They are not chasing Pete’s orgasm so much as pursuing it at a leisurely pace, the journey almost as important as the destination. Patrick kisses him sloppy, rubs his mouth just behind Pete’s ear where he’s sensitive and satiny and smells so deliciously of husband. 

“Love you,” he murmurs, and Pete locks tense, his breathing shivery against Patrick’s ear, his orgasm wet and warm over their stomachs, groins, Patrick’s hand and fingers. His hips pump, rutting into Patrick’s stilled fist, his own come slick and slippery, his gasps a benediction of ‘Fuck, fuck, _Patrick, fuck.’_ There’s a delicious thrill to the way he loses his whole vocabulary when Patrick is touching him, an electric throb of possession. Pete slumps against him and Patrick slumps against the bed. He strokes Pete’s balls, feels along the softening, twitchy length of him just to make his hips squirm, and whispers, “Happy birthday, by the way. Fuck. Correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t _you_ be the one getting head this morning?”

“Mm,” Pete hums, blissed out, a deadweight on Patrick’s chest as his toes wriggle delighted against the mattress. “You’ll make up for it later.”

“That’s a bold assumption on your part. You’re forty now, that’s practically geriatric. Who says you’ll get it up again today?”

“This is my age,” Pete says, deadpan, “I’m in the prime of my youth and I’ll only be young once.”

“But you’ll always be stupid,” Patrick fires back, because he’s watched Stand By Me. 

“You are so unbelievably mean to me. You should make up for it with amazing, sloppy birthday sex later.”

“Okay, stud. You really shouldn’t be getting this worked up at your age — we’re probably a line of coke and a vigorous handjob away from that insurance check.”

“Fuck you,” Pete says lazily, then looks up, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Wait, will there be coke at my birthday party? Awesome!”

“You’re sharing it with our one-year-old,” Patrick reminds him. “I’m not even offering the type that comes in two liter bottles.”

“Shame, for a second I thought we were rock stars,” Pete says, but doesn’t sound as though he means it, then he goes right back to kissing ticklishly at every mouthful of Patrick’s skin he can reach without moving too much. 

“Being a rock star would suck,” Patrick says. “Tour buses are small, I don’t like flying, and I’m not sure I’d know how to spend rock star money. This is nice, though, don’t you think?”

Pete’s orgasm and Patrick’s sweat have combined, sticky on his stomach, gluing them together in a cheerful tangle of belly hair and cooling come. At some point, Patrick is going to have to get up. Avery will wake soon, a little dawn bird of a child singing wake up music into her baby monitor. She exists without consequences, without a care for her dads who’d love to sleep late. There’s a backyard to decorate and photographs to stage and a grill that Pete can preside over with tongs and a novelty apron and a selection of bad jokes about his meat. There are showers to take and oatmeal to make and clothes to lay out and balloons to blow and candles to set into carefully decorated birthday cakes. There is a lot to do and a finite amount of time to do it before their guests arrive. The sun is bright beyond the blinds, picking out highlights in Pete’s hair, painting him copper and gold. He scruffs a hand through Pete’s hair and closes his eyes and whispers, “The baby’s gonna wake up soon.”

They snap open immediately when Pete murmurs, around a biting kiss to Patrick’s collar bone, “We should have another.”

Patrick blinks. “I’m going to assume you mean another party. If you _do_ mean party then yes, we can absolutely have another. It’s Harper’s birthday soon, you’re free to go absolutely nuts.”

“I did not, in fact, mean parties,” Pete says, still kissing Patrick softly, his voice mumbly and thick. “Another _baby,_ Patrick. We should have another baby.”

Patrick has this terrible habit of agreeing to stupid things when Pete uses that syrupy voice, that melting tone that drips through his brain and down into his mouth and spills out over his lips with unequivocal complicity. This is a habit he absolutely needs to break. He grabs Pete firmly by the ears and stops him from doing that distracting thing with his mouth. Immediately, it is easier to think. Pete blinks at him. 

“I am _not_ having another baby,” he says. “Ever.”

Pete pouts. “Why not? You _like_ babies.”

Sometimes, over the past few weeks, Patrick has imagined himself to be the luckiest man if not in the world, then definitely within the Chicagoland area. He has four beautiful, wonderful, fascinating, _astonishing_ tiny people in his life, who fill his heart with so much unimaginable joy that he feels dizzy with it, who do something surprising every single day, who he loves without question or condition. He has a supportive and loving network of friends. He has his blog and his family and he knows, without a doubt, that he is so much more than just a husband and father. There’s strength where there was once uncertainty. Instead of feeling weak for letting Pete back into his life, he feels powerful. They both know, without saying it out loud, that Patrick can function alone. They both know their relationship is not needed, which makes the fact that they _want_ it all the sweeter.

This, however, is not one of those times. He stares at Pete, very hard, and is not charmed _at all_ by the sloppy smile that slips across his flat, wide mouth. 

“I have a very long list of reasons that we will not have another baby,” Patrick says, “a list so long it has roughly as many bullet points as I have wrinkles caused by the four children we already have.”

“Tiny toes,” Pete says hopefully, rubbing his bristly cheek against Patrick’s chest hair. Patrick resists the urge to garott him with the bedsheet, but it’s a perilously close-run thing. “Just think about those tiny little fingers and toes.”

“Thinking about them,” he says very firmly. “And we _still_ have four children, two of whom are not yet in full-time education. Any more, and we go from parents to hoarders. They’ll put us in the newspaper. We’ll wind up on _TLC.”_

“But…” Pete says, then trails off. He laughs, rough and rasping, against Patrick’s shoulder and digs the bony point of his chin into the soft, pink skin there and licks affectionately at Patrick’s earlobe. When he whispers, his voice is like the prickle of static electricity, raising the hair at the nape of Patrick’s neck, along his forearms, looped casually so his hands rest on Pete’s ass. “Okay,” he says, like he’s making a great abatement, “no more kids. But how about another dog?”

Patrick, half asleep and sex drunk and clearly an idiot, is smart enough to know when he’s been played. “You _asshole!”_ he says, and shoves Pete’s shoulder. “I was panicking! I thought you were serious!"

“I could be serious about the dog,” Pete says. He is rocking his hips in lazy, easy figure eights, drawing his own softened dick over Patrick’s again and again until the sensitivity begins to burn. They know neither of them can come again, that this slow erosion of their refractory periods will never swing back in their favor. Still, it feels so nice, it feels so warm and slow and _pink._ Patrick knots his fingers at Pete’s nape and pulls him down, kisses him wet and messy and tastes the sincerity of it, Pete’s mouth swollen and lovely and bitter and salty. 

“Pete,” he starts, and then fades away, tongue-tied. 

There are so many things he wants to say, so many thoughts to ensnare and twist into adequate words to explain how he feels. Things like _I love you so much larger than I ever have before_ and _Thank you so much for finding your way back when you didn’t know you were lost_ and _You are a lucky man but somehow you make me feel even luckier_. But none of them make sense. None of them are enough. There’s a lifetime to work it out. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll figure it out when they’re both in possession of most of their teeth and their marbles. 

On the nightstand, the baby monitor crackles and hisses into life. “Dada?” Avery shouts, and on the screen she is already standing, already reaching out towards the door with her fat little fists, with her wispy copper hair a cresting wave at the back of her head. “Dada, dada, _dada?”_

“There’s come on me,” Pete groans, flopping onto his back, his bare brown stomach smudged and pearlescent, his tattoo liquid and fresh between his hip bones. “This is your fault.”

“That,” Patrick says, “is _your_ come. I disposed of mine neatly.”

“ _I_ disposed of yours neatly! Dispose of mine!”

“If you think I’m licking that off like some kind of _pervert,_ then you need to reevaluate everything you believe about our relationship.”

“Yeah, yeah, spitters are quitters, Stump-Wentz.”

“I can’t be a spitter when you don’t hold out long enough to get it in my mouth, _Stump-Wentz,_ and anyway…”

They bicker, playful, as they struggle into pajama pants and shorts, as they make their way into the kitchen collecting children and Penny as they go, like burrs catching in the soft belly fur of a passing cat, deposited on the couch, in the high chair, at the breakfast island where Patrick foresaw their marriage ending. Pete leans against it casually now, bare-chested but thankfully clean, demonstrating to Harper that it is absolutely possible to balance a grape on the end of his nose. Every time it rolls off, she shrieks and applauds like he is the funniest person to ever live. Harper has a terrible sense of humor — Patrick remains hopeful it will develop with time. 

“Rainbow pancakes! Since it’s a birthday,” Pete declares. 

“There’s gonna be _cake,”_ Patrick points out. “And ice cream, and candy, and—”

“Shut up, daddy,” Caitlyn says softly, smiling her dad’s smile as Patrick looks at her with surprise. “Sometimes, he has good ideas.”

_That’s my girl_ , Pete says, with smiling eyes but not his mouth. Patrick shakes his head and slides his arms around Pete’s waist and presses his whole body up against him, like he can surround him with love and warmth and the quivering gratitude he feels for this chance, this moment. Against Pete’s temple, he whispers, “That’s my boy.”

As the griddle heats, he thinks he feels Pete smile. 

***

In the backyard, on a trestle table groaning with food, there are two entirely magnificent birthday cakes. One is a three tier unicorn confection, perfectly photogenic, the plaque on front hand-iced with Avery’s name. The other is an absolute disaster of neon sugar paste, complete with references to every element of pop culture Pete has ever loved. The 4 is significantly larger than the 0. There is a lightsaber cake knife. 

The crowd clustered around the birthday children — because Pete is a child at heart, if not on his birth certificate — is large and singing loudly. Pete is dressed in a white shirt that matches Avery’s white dress and Patrick is silently questioning the wisdom of putting them in such close proximity to chocolate cake and frosting. Not so silently, he is singing, belting out the birthday number as their friends and family join in. Across the crowd, Will smiles at him and raises a glass of the lethal punch Pete has created, his dark eyes twinkling as he slings an arm around Gabe. Joe, and his wife are attempting to subdue a twin each. Andy is lecturing Pete’s mom and dad on the ethical principles of modern birthday celebrations and also eating his third vegan brownie. Patrick’s mom is right beside him, her hand on his arm as she sings. The yard is crammed with everyone who loves them. This is… nice. This is exactly the kind of family tableau he always wanted.

“Happy birthday, _AveryandPeeete,_ happy birthday to you!”

Pete is grinning fit to burst, Avery on his hip looking delighted and astonished and Patrick has never felt so much, so many hard edged, soft centered feelings in his chest and swimming through his lungs. He loops his arms around Caitlyn’s shoulders and rests his chin gently against the top of her head. She tips back, dislodges him and looks at him, smiling, so perceptive, her hand covering his.

“You’re definitely not crying,” she says quietly.

“Oh, good, because that would be very embarrassing,” he says, cuffing at the corner of his eyes with the back of his wrist. 

“It’s okay, daddy,” she says. “I didn’t think he’d do it, either.”

So, Patrick circulates and fills drinks and fetches burgers and steaks and veggie kabobs out to the grill for Pete to set about turning them into something edible. If he had time to think, he might wonder at how much easier this is now that he has a _partner._ Instead, they steal kisses in the kitchen when no one is watching, they hold hands briefly as they pass Avery from one to the other. They are so desperately in love that Patrick feels it in the back of his throat, in the deep, red guts of himself, in the throb of blood in his veins. 

“Have you seen my kids?” Joe asks, taking a burger from the table. 

“Uh, nope?” Patrick says, leaning into Pete as he wraps an arm around him. So what if it’s slightly possessive. Joe is handsome, after all. And _tall._  

“Oh, thank God,” Joe sighs, grabbing a beer for good measure. “So, any more thoughts about joining the band?”

“Um…” Patrick says. 

Pete frowns, his heavy brows drawing together. “What band?”

“I have a band,” Joe says proudly. “We have the _best_ name.”

“You have the _worst_ name,” Patrick corrects him, with feeling. He turns to Pete. “Babe, they’re named The _Dad_ Kennedys. Isn’t that the worst name you’ve ever heard?”

“I once thought about naming a band Fall Out Boy,” Pete says seriously. 

“Simpsons reference,” Joe crows, clinking their beer bottles together. “Nice!”

“That would’ve been the worst band,” Patrick says. “Seriously, there’s no way anyone could’ve asked for your album with a straight face. Can you _imagine_ the merch?”

“It’s a good name,” Pete shrugs. “And for what it’s worth, I think you should join Joe’s band.”

Patrick is so surprised, he nearly drops Harper. Fortunately, Harper’s developed strong grip reflexes on account of having such a terrible father, and hangs on grimly to the stretched neck of Patrick’s t-shirt. 

“Yes!” Joe declares, and fist pumps. “Today, Glenview, tomorrow, the world! Or, like, maybe Barrington. Baby steps.”

“Daddy!” Harper scolds him. “Don’t drop me!”

“I wouldn’t, princess,” he says, somewhat dazed. He looks at Pete. “I — What did you say?”

“I said, I think you should jam judiciously with Joe. Or something that contains fewer Js. You used to _love_ playing, you should get back into it.”

“Dad’s joining a _band?”_ Noah asks, summoned by the opportunity to humiliate his father. “Will you be famous?”

“No I’m not and no I won’t,” Patrick says. It’s too late.

“Caitlyn! Daddy’s gonna be famous!”

“What?” Caitlyn asks suspiciously, the horror that this might be possible fighting the natural instinct to ignore everything her brother says. “For _what?_ No, don’t tell me, whatever it is, it’s definitely not allowed.”

“Dada!” Avery sings from Pete’s hip. “No!”

“The kids seem thrilled,” Patrick remarks drily.

“I promise I’ll be your biggest fan,” Pete says. “I’ll make t-shirts. With your face on them.”

There is no doubt in Patrick’s mind that Pete would do exactly that given the opportunity and access to a printing company. This is why the good Lord invented parental controls. He eyes Pete suspiciously and shifts Harper up on his hip. 

“I’m… not very good,” Patrick says slowly. “I mean, I’m not just saying that. I haven’t played in _years—”_

“He can sing, too, did he tell you he can sing?” Pete says to Joe, like Patrick is deaf. “Voice of an angel.”

“I — I don’t have the voice of an angel. That’s not a thing that I have.”

“Awesome,” says Joe, again, as though Patrick is incapable of independent thought. “We could use a singer. He can come practise with us Thursday night. Tell him to bring his guitar.”

“I’m standing _right here!”_

“I will,” Pete says, and squeezes Patrick’s ass subtly. “He’ll like that.”

Joe walks away smiling. The sun is beginning to set and the yard feels enchanted. Patrick recognizes the look on Pete’s face; the way his mouth tips up at the corners, the way his eyes twinkle. _I’m an asshole_ , that smile says, _but I’m your asshole._  

“I got you a band,” Pete says. “Surprise.”

“Do we get to live in a mansion?” Noah asks. 

“God, you’re _such_ an idiot,” Caitlyn informs him.

“Hmm,” Patrick says, and tries to look very unhappy, which is harder than it sounds when his mouth creases into a smile. “Thank you. But you’re not printing shirts with my face on them.”

“I have pictures, I have a checking account, I have Amazon Prime.”

Pete loves so completely, so helplessly, with every beat of his big, stupid heart. Patrick hopes he never changes.

***

Patrick lies in bed, on his back, his glasses sliding down his nose. He is reading before bed, which is a luxury he hasn’t enjoyed in _years._ He is so excited by this that he keeps forgetting to actually read, turning the book over in his hands to admire the cover, smoothing his fingers along the spine and feeling it give beneath his touch. How remarkable, to sit by the light of a bedside lamp and handle a book and know that it is his for the reading, if he wants it. He should probably start reading it. He will read it. Any minute now.

“What’re you reading?” Pete asks softly from the bathroom door. 

He’s fresh from the shower, his skin pink and his shorts low on his hips. There is something lovely about the sharp cut of his groin, the juvenile lines of his bartskull. 

“Nothing,” Patrick answers truthfully, sliding a bookmark into the first page and placing it down neatly on the nightstand. “Come here, birthday boy.”

“Is this the part where I get totally hot birthday sex?” Pete asks, smiling. He climbs onto the bed and shuffles under the covers and Patrick pushes Pete’s hair back from his eyes, strokes his cheek, thumbs along his jaw, dips into the golden hollow of his throat where his pulse throbs. “I have some plans, I’ve been warming up. I think we should start with the Kama Sutra, pages four through fifteen, before we move on to anything more… ambitious.”

“You do know that the Kama Sutra isn’t _just_ sexual positions, right? I know it got pigeonholed that way, but it’s a marriage guide. Like, there’s every possibility page four is about how to make the perfect cup of coffee for your spouse.”

Pete grins and pillows his chin on one hand, tracing slow, indolent patterns across Patrick’s sleep shirt with the other. “I can make you coffee, then. Hot coffee. _Sexy_ coffee. All the hot, sexy coffee you can drink.”

“You and I have _wildly_ differing ideas about the aphrodisiacal properties of coffee,” Patrick says fondly. 

“You haven’t tasted _my_ coffee, there’s a secret ingredient,” Pete assures him, straddling Patrick and kissing him so thoroughly that it is impossible to pull away and make a witty retort. 

Like ice cream, Patrick _melts_ , his mouth opening to Pete’s lazy, curious tongue, his skin a nervy quiver under Pete’s fingers as they skim along his ribs, his hip bones, as they stroke with unhurried interest along Patrick’s jaw and throat. There should be laws that forbid kissing like this, or else laws that prohibit it ending. Patrick is a puddle leaking out through the mattress, soft and pliant as Pete slows it down, pecking his lips, his jaw, his pulse point in his throat. When Pete pulls back, Patrick blinks up at the ceiling and wonders when it was he seized two fistfuls of Pete’s hair. 

“You’re a very good kisser,” he tells Pete, dazed. His voice is throaty. He hopes he looks fractionally less wrecked than he sounds. “Hey, sorry you had to share your birthday with a baby, though. I mean, I feel like that’s on me, since I’m the one who masturbated into a cup for that one. So, yeah. Sorry about that.”

“God, you say the hottest things,” Pete mumbles into Patrick’s throat, rocking his hips into Patrick’s, dry humping him with the aggressive lack of coordination of a teenage boy. “Yeah, that’s right, babe. Talk about the fertility clinic, gets me so worked up…”

Pete keeps going, keeps spilling stupid until they’re laughing too hard to kiss and he rolls bonelessly to his back and he looks at Patrick around his laughing mouth and his bright, sharp teeth and his lovely golden eyes are so soft, so crinkled at the corners with love and deep, enduring adoration. Patrick laces their fingers together, and attempts to press his own heartbeat into Pete, to tie up their arteries and thin, threaded veins in the same pulsing throb of blood. Their wedding rings catch the light of the bedside lamp. Patrick has never felt happier than this. 

“Thank you so much,” Pete says, at length. Patrick raises an eyebrow at him and takes off his glasses, blinking owlishly as Pete pillows his head on Patrick’s shoulder, as he looks up at him with those endless eyes and smiles. “I just wanted to say thank you. Not for taking me back.”

With great sarcasm, Patrick says, “Oh, you’re welcome, it was no trouble at all—”

“No, not _just_ for taking me back, but like, thanks for that, too.” Pete pauses and touches Patrick’s cheek. “But… Thank you for making me realize that something was wrong in the first place.”

“You’re the biggest fucking idiot,” Patrick says thoughtfully, rolling on his side to appraise Pete more fully. 

“You have the _best_ birthday sex dirty talk.”

“No, seriously, you’re a total moron,” Patrick says, tucking a strand of Pete’s hair behind his ear and pausing there, brushing his thumb across the lobe as Pete blinks at him. 

“I… thank? You?” Pete says uncertainly. 

“You had so many opportunities to figure out things were wrong. But I had them, too. I didn’t tell you how I was feeling, I bottled it up and that wasn’t fair. We work when we talk, but that’s on both of us.”

“I can do that,” Pete agrees. “I’m so glad I have my husband back.”

“It’s been fifteen years — I see you as a long term investment. Or a sunken costs fallacy, one or the other. The important thing is,” and Patrick grins and squeezes at the loved round of Pete’s cheek, “if I’d murdered you that first night, instead of blowing you, I’d probably be out of jail by now, with good behaviour. I should probably stay at this point.”

“I, for one, am very glad you chose to blow me. Hey, speaking of,” Pete wriggles closer and kisses Patrick’s mouth, sweet and tender. “Can I make a special birthday request?”

Patrick sighs and looks at Pete with skepticism. “If it involves getting my legs behind my ears, we probably have to accept that’s _not_ going to happen,” he says. “But go ahead, what’s the birthday treat?”

“Can we… cuddle?” Pete asks shyly. “I’m kind of tired and old and your jammies smell _amazing_ and I sort of just want to… cuddle. Is that lame? Am I officially out to pasture?”

Patrick looks at this man who he has loved for almost half of his life. He looks at the laughter lines and the grey in his hair and the abs that will never be quite as firm as they once were, and the tattoos that are ageing disgracefully. There was a time when Pete told him he didn’t imagine he’d see 30, that he’d burn up and burn out, the brightest star in the night sky but only for a moment, a fleeting heartbeat, and then he’d be gone. Better than fading away, he said. Patrick thinks of their children, asleep in their beds, he thinks of their wedding and their apartment in Roscoe and their house in the suburbs and the way he felt when he stood in front of their loved ones and declared this man would be his forever. He’s glad Pete chose to stick around. 

Patrick is not a native of Divorce, though he made a fleeting visit. The stamp is not in his passport and he’s not as fluent in the language as he feared he might be. 

“We can cuddle,” Patrick agrees quietly. “We can do whatever we like.”

Once upon a time, Patrick kisses his handsome prince on the mouth and reaches for the bedside light and, when the moonlight slants in through the blinds and paints Pete silver and lovely, when he’s kissed him soundly and deeply, Patrick curls his arms around him and holds him close. He doesn’t know the future, he can’t possibly, and life is a series of ups and downs and middling moments. 

But, once upon a time, Patrick trusts himself to believe in happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started writing this fic, all I really knew was that I wanted to show that no relationship is beyond redemption _if_ both parties want it to work. I wanted to show that life is rarely a fairytale but that none of us are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents. That The Beatles were wrong and that love is not, in fact, all you need. You need respect for one another, friendship, and to appreciate that no relationship is guaranteed, no matter how long you’ve been together.
> 
> So, I guess that’s what I’ve tried to have Pete do. He’s not perfect, far from it, but he decided that his family and his husband were worth more to him than machismo and toxic masculinity. 
> 
> It’s been an absolute blast to write this little family and thank you so much to everyone who’s read, left kudos and commented. I truly hope you’ve enjoyed it. 
> 
> Until the next fic...

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you _so_ much for reading! If you wanted to leave a comment or kudos that would be absolutely, spiffingly awesome of you :D
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr [here!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sn1tchesandtalkers)
> 
> Have an awesome week!


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